Title: American Bar Association. Standing Committee on Traffic Court Program: Records
Inclusive Dates: 1952-1965

Creator:

• American Bar Association. Standing Committee on Traffic Court Program

Call Number: Mss 33

Quantity: 1.2 c.f. (3 archives boxes)

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:

Records of the American Bar Association's Committee on Traffic Court Program, initiated in 1942 to provide education and training for judges and prosecutors. These files of Albert B. Houghton, Milwaukee, Wis., attorney and chairman of the committee, include correspondence with James Economos, program director, with David Maxwell and other ABA presidents, and with others, minutes, reports of progress and activities, financial accounts, conferences, speeches, studies, and circular letters and publications.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00033

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Within the American Bar Association, the Traffic Court Administration was initiated on December 1, 1942. In 1950 a special committee was created to supervise the traffic court program, to be known as the Special Committee on Traffic Court Program. This committee cooperated “in establishing a national standard for improving traffic courts in concert with the President's Committee for Traffic Safety and Highway Safety Conferences, the National Safety Council, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Conference of Judicial Conferences, the Conference of Chief Justices of State Supreme Courts, and the Traffic Institute of Northwestern University.”

In 1958, the Standing Committee on Traffic Court Program replaced the Special Committee, which had functioned year to year on a temporary basis. The Standing Committee had responsibility for activities and programs relating to the administration and justice by the courts with respect to traffic cases; and it continued to cooperate with the same national groups and institutions with which the old Special Committee had worked.

Functions of the Traffic Court Program include: educational and training program for judges and prosecutors, through conferences and publications; promotion of films concerning traffic courts; aid to the state and local bar associations; maintenance of a field service; circulation of newsletters; fund raising for the work of the Committee; and awards to judges and local groups.

From 1950 to 1965, Albert B. Houghton, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, lawyer and the donor of these records, was chairman of the Committee on Traffic Court Programs. He was succeeded by Roy A. Bronson who had served on the Committee with Mr. Houghton. James P. Economos was paid director for the Traffic Court Program, with offices in Chicago, at the American Bar Center.

Mr. Houghton, a native of Oshkosh, Wsiconsin, graduated in 1902 from the Milwaukee Normal School, and later graduated from the University of Chicago, from which he received his law degree in 1909. He was city attorney for Wauwatosa for twenty years, and was a former public administrator of Milwaukee County in land condemnation proceedings. He served as a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General to hear conscientious objectors' cases in the eastern Wisconsin district of the Federal court.

All correspondence contained in the records is filed in the first three folders of Box 1, and the remainder of the materials are organized under subject headings. The correspondence, 1956-1961, contains letters that reached the hands of Albert H. Houghton, chairman, and some of his replies. Correspondence is chiefly with James P. Economos; various presidents of the American Bar Association, particularly David Maxwell; and companies helping to finance the Traffic Court Program. Much of it is of a routine nature, typical of the correspondence carried on among members of an organization's committees.

Of particular interest are the folders labeled “Committee reports of progress and activities, 1955-1961” in Folder 5 of Box 1 and Folder 1 of Box 2. The reports give a good overview of the purpose and activities of the Standing Committee on Traffic Court Program, and its relation to other organizations and to the American Bar Association.

Other materials in the records include agenda and minutes of meetings, financial reports, references to conferences, speeches on traffic problems by members of the Committee or its personnel, and studies made relating to traffic court problems.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Albert B. Houghton, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 28, 1966.

Processing Information

Processed by archives students, Summer 1968, and Margaret Hafstad, January 10, 1969.

	Correspondence File
Box   1 Folder   1	1956
Box   1 Folder   2	1957
Box   1 Folder   3	1958-1961
	Subject File
Box   1 Folder   4	Committee meetings - agenda and minutes, 1956-1961, Information sheets
	Committee reports of progress and activities
Box   1 Folder   5	1955-1960
Box   2 Folder   1	1959-1961
Box   2 Folder   2	Film project on traffic safety, 1956
	Financial reports
Box   2 Folder   3	Committee, 1956-1961
Box   2 Folder   4	Director's expenses, 1957-1961
Box   2 Folder   5	Law and Layman Conferences, 1959-1960
Box   2 Folder   6	Memoranda concerning traffic courts, 1960-1961
Box   2 Folder   7	Photographs
Box   3 Folder   1	President's Committee for Traffic Safety-Action Program
Box   3 Folder   2	Publications and circulars put out by the Committee
	Traffic Court
Box   3 Folder   3	Conferences, 1952-1965
Box   3 Folder   4	Inventory Awards, 1958-1961
Box   3 Folder   5	Speeches, 1956, 1959-1960
Box   3 Folder   6	Studies, 1959-1960; Summary covering 1952-1960