Title: Kenneth Gale Crawford Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1911-1983

Creator:

• Crawford, Kenneth Gale, 1902-1983

Call Number: Mss 756; Micro 1149; PH 3810; PH 3810 (3); PH 3811; PH 3812

Quantity: 0.4 cubic feet (1 archives box), 1 reel of microfilm (35 mm), 65 photographs, and 11 scrapbook pages

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers, mainly 1937-1972, of Kenneth Gale Crawford, a journalist, magazine editor, and World War II correspondent. Included are printed copies of articles, speeches, fragmentary correspondence, microfilmed scrapbooks concerning his year as president of the American Newspaper Guild (1940) and other aspects of his early professional career, book reviews, a complete run of his “Washington” column from Newsweek magazine (available only on microfilm), biographical information, photographs, and subject files concerning his coverage of World War II, a trip to Vietnam in 1962, and interviews of Lyndon B. Johnson and Henry Kissinger.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00756

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Correspondent, columnist, editor, author, and one-time president of the American Newspaper Guild, Kenneth Gale Crawford was one of the most prominent and well-respected political journalists of his era. Benjamin Bradley of the Washington Post once called him “a shining example” for his “dedication to lean, explicit prose, and to fairness and integrity.”

Crawford was born in Sparta, Wisconsin, on May 27, 1902, the son of Robert and Madge Gale Crawford. He grew up in Jefferson, Wisconsin and attended Beloit College, where he was a member of Sigma Chi and the president of his graduating class. After receiving his degree in journalism in 1924, Crawford went to work for the United Press holding a succession of assignments as reporter and bureau manager in St. Paul, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Lansing. While in Lansing, he met his future wife, Elizabeth Bartholomew, whom he married in July 1928.

In 1927 Crawford was transferred to Washington where he covered the White House and the Senate, before being assigned to the campaign of Senator Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's vice-presidential running mate. After a brief interval (1929-1930) as political editor of the Buffalo Times, Crawford returned to Washington as a correspondent for the New York Post, the Philadelphia Record, and other newspapers. In addition, he wrote a regular bylined column for The Nation and anonymously contributed to the New Republic's “TRB” column.

In 1939 Crawford joined the liberal PM in New York as its Washington correspondent. That same year he was elected president of the American Newspaper Guild after the death of its founder and first president, Heywood Broun. During Crawford's year as president he faced several problems including efforts to maintain “closed shop” newsrooms and the growth of communism within the Guild. This latter issue ultimately cost Crawford his reelection at the 1940 ANG convention.

After the outbreak of World War II, Crawford went to North Africa as a war correspondent for PM. Crawford broke with his paper over his interpretation of the Darlan affair and, as a result, became a correspondent for Newsweek. Crawford covered assignments in the Middle East, Italy, England, and France. On D-Day he was the first American correspondent ashore and the first correspondent to file a story on the invasion. He also covered the V-1 and V-2 attacks on England, the break-out from Normandy at St. Lo, and General George Patton's sweep to Paris. For his service as a war correspondent, Crawford was commended by both the U.S. Army and Navy and awarded the French Liberation Medal.

Upon his return to Washington, D.C., Crawford served as an associate editor for Newsweek before moving to New York in 1949 as national affairs editor. Five years later he returned to the nation's capital, where, as bureau manager, he regularly ghosted articles and columns. In 1961 he began writing the weekly “Washington” column under his own name. For the next ten years this column was noted for its astute commentary on the American political scene. In 1962 Crawford traveled to Vietnam to provide first-hand coverage of the situation there. Following his retirement in 1970, Crawford continued to be active in the profession as a contributor to the Washington Post.

In addition to his work as a correspondent and columnist, Crawford was a popular public speaker and a guest on political panels and radio programs. His speeches and freelance editorials and articles appeared in the New York Times, the New York Post, The Progressive, the Daily Worker, The Saturday Evening Post, the New Republic, and many other publications. Crawford was the author of two books: The Pressure Boys (1939), a pioneering but controversial study of lobbying, and Report on North Africa (1943), which concerned his observations of the diplomacy during the war in that theater.

Kenneth Crawford died of lung cancer on January 13, 1983 at the age of 80. He was survived by his wife and his two children, William and Gale.

The Kenneth Gale Crawford Papers span almost the entire life of Kenneth Crawford from a letter written about 1911 to obituaries printed after his death in 1983. Despite this apparent comprehensiveness, the collection is small, and given the events of his career, disappointingly fragmentary and incomplete. The majority of Crawford's writings are documented only by final, printed copies without the drafts and supporting material that would make the collection an outstanding source for research. There are, however, a number of valuable items in the papers including a complete run of his “Washington” column, clippings and correspondence concerning his brief tenure as president of the American Newspaper Guild, a typescript journal concerning his observations of Vietnam in 1962, and notes on an interview with Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1971.

The collection is organized as Personal and Biographical Material, Correspondence, Speeches and Writings, and Special Interest Files.

The Personal and Biographical Information contains miscellaneous material about Crawford and members of his family such as resumes, obituaries, biographical clippings, awards and honorary degrees, and a copy of his birth certificate. Also of note is a copy of a letter from Ernest Hemingway which mentioned Crawford and a brief autobiography and notes entitled “Episodes and People” concerning his observations of various celebrities, apparently a proposal for a book. Photographs received with the papers include documentation of various events in his career and members of his family.

Correspondence consists of a small general file which dates from letters of introduction written for Crawford in 1922 to responses to a 1977 article. The few letters of note which are included (from Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Melvin Laird, Richard Nixon, and General George Patton) appear to have been selected for their flattering comments. Similar letters (including several from Harold Ickes) are included in the microfilmed career scrapbooks. More important among the general correspondence is a letter from Eleanor Roosevelt which included comments from her daughter Anna Boettiger about local ANG activities and Crawford's response when this letter was accidentally opened in the ANG offices. There is one additional outgoing letter from Crawford concerning the Guild. Also of note is an unsigned 1968 letter (apparently from Crawford) concerning Newsweek's departure from editorial objectivity on civil rights issues. A separate correspondence file relates to his book, The Pressure Boys. Included here are letters (one from Alben Barkley) and legal documents concerning alleged errors in the book and royalty statements.

Speeches and Writings contains a variety of the genres in which Crawford worked--articles, book reviews, books, columns, and speeches--arranged alphabetically by type. Because of their deteriorated condition the articles are available almost entirely on microfilm. Filmed among the articles are two career scrapbooks which not only contain copies of Crawford's writings but also include articles about him and his career. The first scrapbook deals primarily with The Pressure Boys and includes reviews, publishers' notices, editorials, and related correspondence. Clippings regarding his Guild presidency, public appearances, and PM are also included, as are several photographs. The second scrapbook is devoted almost exclusively to his coverage of World War II in Africa and Europe. Many of Crawford's articles, as well as correspondence, identification and press cards, and photographs are included. The second half of the volume is largely concerned with the reviews and responses to his book Report on North Africa. The scrapbooks were destroyed after filming, but the original photographs contained in them have been retained with other photographs in the Personal and biographical Information section.

Also on film is an additional volume of articles written by Crawford for the Washington Post after his retirement from Newsweek and a number of loose clippings. Although the unbound article clippings span the period 1937 to 1978 and represent the large number of journals and magazines for which he wrote, they probably constitute only a fraction of his total career output. Also available only on microfilm are several chronologically-arranged albums which contained a complete run of printed copies of his “Washington” column.

Other genres represented in the papers include book reviews; advertising material and a review for his book Report on North Africa; speeches; and published and unpublished transcripts from radio programs on which he appeared such as American Forum of the Air and Town Meeting. Although the collection does not include either of Crawford's books, a copy of The Pressure Boys is held by the SHSW Library.

The Special Interest Files were either kept by Crawford for his own use or represent groups of loose subject-related material arranged in the Archives. Present are materials concerning the 25th anniversary of the D-Day landings and a letter of introduction, a draft of his famous D-Day article, and other memorabilia concerning World War II. In the file on Vietnam is a day-by-day journal of observations, interviews, notes, and editorial comments on his visit to Vietnam in 1962. Miscellaneous documents entitled background material includes 1971 “off-the-record” remarks by Henry Kissinger, and a lengthy cablegram from Crawford concerning a telephone interview with President Johnson in 1971.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Kenneth G. Crawford, 1963, and Gale Crawford Pierce, Alexandria, Virginia, April 5, 1988. Accession Number: MCHC63-104, M88-120

Processing Information

Processed by Elizabeth Cranley (archives intern), 1988.

Mss 756	Series: Personal and Biographical Information
Box   1 Folder   1	Biographical material, awards, and obituaries, 1939-1983
Box   1 Folder   2	Personal and family material
Box   1 Folder   3	Proposal for autobiography, undated
PH 3811	Family photographs
PH 3810	Career photographs
PH 3810 (3)	Scrapbook pages, 1939-1945 Note: Contains news clippings, photographs, ephemera and correspondence, including a letter of appreciation from U.S. Army Lt. Gen. George S. Patton to Crawford.
PH 3812	News photographs of the 1944 Normandy invasion and of a D-Day anniversary ceremony, circa 1969
Mss 756	Series: Correspondence	⇧
Box   1 Folder   4	General, 1922-1974
Box   1 Folder   5	Material relating to The Pressure Boys, 1939-1940
	Series: Speeches and Writings	⇧
Micro 1149	Articles
	Career scrapbooks
Reel   1 Frame   1	1939-1942
Reel   1 Frame   131	Loose clippings regarding American Newspaper Guild, 1940
Reel   1 Frame   146	1943-1944
Reel   1 Frame   263	Washington Post scrapbook, 1971-1972
Reel   1 Frame   312	Loose articles, 1937-1978
Mss 756 Box   1 Folder   6	Article drafts, circa 1972; undated
Box   1 Folder   7	Book material--Report on North Africa, 1940
Box   1 Folder   8	Book reviews by KGC, 1946-1948
	Column (“Washington” for Newsweek)
Box   1 Folder   9	Title index list
Micro 1149 Reel   1 Frame   435	Albums, 1961-1970
Mss 756 Box   1 Folder   10	Speeches, radio transcripts, and drafts, 1940-1972, undated
	Series: Special Interest Files	⇧
Box   1 Folder   11	Background material
Box   1 Folder   12	D-Day 25th anniversary, 1969
Box   1 Folder   13	Vietnam, 1962
Box   1 Folder   14	World War II, 1943-1946