Title: Wisconsin Alliance. Madison Chapter: Records
Inclusive Dates: 1968-1977

Creator:

• Wisconsin Alliance (Madison Chapter)

Call Number: Mss 474; PH Mss 474; PH Mss 474 (5)

Quantity: 5.1 c.f., (13 archives boxes and 1 oversize folder), 27 photographs, and 6 posters

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 Wisconsin Alliance, a socialist organization founded in Madison in 1968 that worked to create and sustain a grass-roots worker-small farmer-student alliance. The Alliance supported activities in areas such as Native American treaty rights, educational reform, environmental activism, welfare rights, electoral politics, and national and local strikes including Farah, General Motors, farm workers, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Teaching Assistants Association. The bulk of these records document the Madison chapter but other chapters existed in the Fox Valley, Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Racine-Kenosha. Included is general correspondence; policy documents; minutes, committee reports, meeting notes, and conference notes at the state and local levels; public activities consisting of press releases, campaign papers, leaflets, broadsides, and news clippings; records of related organizations including the Wisconsin Youth for Democratic Education (WYDE) and Teachers for Peaceful Alternatives (TPA); records of the Civil Action, Research and Education Project (CAREP), the precursor of Wisconsin Alliance; and research files. The photographs depict demonstrations in the Madison area in which the Wisconsin Alliance participated, and other activities.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00474

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The Wisconsin Alliance was a socialist organization founded in Madison in April 1968 by a small group of anti-war activists. The Wisconsin Alliance's precursor organization, the Civil Action, Research and Education Project (CAREP), stressed research and the publication of its newsletter “The Organizer.” The Wisconsin Alliance, however, formed to undertake direct action projects. Its goal was to create and sustain a grass-roots worker-small farmer-student coalition, which emphasized electoral politics and local organizing. During its approximately seven-year history, the Alliance ran upwards of twenty electoral campaigns for members seeking local, state, and national office. They succeeded in placing Mary Kay Baum on the Dane County Board in 1970 and 1972, and Susan Kay Phillips on the Madison City Council in 1971 and 1973. The United States Senate campaign for Betty Boardman in 1970 was not successful.

Initial Alliance attempts to publish a statewide newspaper and expand the organization's geographical base met with mixed results. By January of 1972, the first issue of The Wisconsin Patriot: Voice of the Wisconsin Alliance was in circulation, and by 1974 the Alliance had founded chapters in the Fox Valley in Appleton-Menasha (1972), in Milwaukee (1973), Green Bay (1973), and Racine-Kenosha (1973). Although no exact membership numbers are available, the state newsletter at its peak in 1971 circulated to approximately two hundred and fifty members. However, with internal political conflict and a declining membership, the group struggled and by the late 1970s, the organization became inactive.

Committees on both the state and local levels directed the Alliance. The State Organizational Bureau (SOB), which made major political decisions and coordinated statewide projects and activities, was composed of one representative from each chapter and attempted to hold state conferences every six months. Various committees formed the basis of individual Alliance chapters. At its peak, the Madison chapter operated labor, youth, cultural, community, campus, internal education, and farm committees. The Milwaukee chapter followed a similar format but lacked a farm committee. Both chapters were coordinated and led by a chapter council comprised of one representative from each committee. The smaller chapters in Appleton-Menasha, Green Bay, and Racine-Kenosha undertook fewer projects and were more informally structured.

The Madison chapter, the heart of the Alliance, engaged in a broad spectrum of political and social action activities. It supported various labor actions, nationally and locally. The Alliance was active in the University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants Association strike (1969), the Gardner's Bakery strike (1970-1973), the Farah clothing strike (1972-1973), the Packerland Meatpacking strike (1974-1975), and the Hortonville Teachers' strike (1974). Madison Alliance members attempted to organize unions and promote rank-and-file caucuses within unions.

The Madison chapter also organized community support projects. One of its major ventures was the statewide Farm Brigades (1971-1974), organized and administered by the Farm Committee to aid small farmers. The Alliance recruited students, teachers, and unemployed workers to assist local farms. This project introduced non-farmers to farm life and provided small farmers with people willing to work for room and board. The program was successful but became a point of contention in later years, as the Alliance's meager resources were stretched thin. The Alliance also undertook efforts to support the Menominee treaty rights and was instrumental in starting a Madison food co-op, Common Market Co-op (1971).

In addition to its community organizing, the Alliance was also involved in cultural projects. They sponsored various theatre groups, as well as writing and directing their own plays. The cultural committee also organized the People's History Project, which produced the People's History calendar.

The group also involved itself in youth activities on both the university and high school levels. Most noteworthy in this area was their work with high school students after the Wisconsin Student Union (WSU) joined the Alliance (1972) and helped found the autonomous Wisconsin Youth for Democratic Education (WYDE). Among its other activities, WYDE supported school board candidates, demanded students' rights, agitated for socialist, Third World, and radical speakers in the high schools, circulated a state newsletter, “State WYDE,” and published a newspaper, Red Pencil.

The chapter also conducted women's caucuses, organized study groups, and sent delegations to various socialist and communist countries, including Cuba, North Vietnam, Yugoslavia, the USSR, and Allende's Chile. Fifteen Alliance members toured the People's Republic of China in 1973.

Throughout its history the Wisconsin Alliance, as a group, and its individual members supported various other organizations, both locally and nationally. Most noteworthy of these groups were the New American Movement (NAM), the People's Party, We the People (WTP), and Teachers for Peaceful Alternatives (TPA).

These records document the decision making process of the organization on both a state and a local level. The collection illustrates the ways in which various chapters, committees, and bureaus worked in coordination to create policy, produce a statewide newspaper, and organize various political and social justice projects. It documents the Alliance's positions and activities on various issues as well as its ideological evolution, its structural growth as a political organization, and its changing relationships with other radical groups.

The major portion of the collection consists of printed materials: internal policy documents and drafts, position papers, broadsides, leaflets, newspapers, and newsletters. This is well complemented by a substantial amount of correspondence, and various meeting notes.

The collection strongly documents the most active years of the organization, 1970-1975. There is some information concerning the beginning years of the organization, but this mostly includes newsletters and other formal policy statements. It is unclear when the organization formally disbanded, but there are documents included in the collection dating until the spring of 1977. The documentation for the last years of the organization is sketchy and inconsistent.

The majority of the records relate to the state organization and the Madison chapter, with a few materials documenting the specific activities of other chapters. There is limited membership information and there are no financial documents.

This collection was processed in two parts, and although the two parts include some overlapping material, there are distinct differences in content and organization. The first part of the collection comprises materials received in the Archives in 1972 and 1975 and has been designated the Original Collection. It consists mainly of printed materials and handwritten notes taken by Alliance member Kim Egli (who differed politically with the organization and left it in 1975) and others who are unidentified. Egli's notes cover events only for the eighteen-month period from July 1973 to December 1974. Part 1 has been organized in four subseries: Internal Affairs Papers, Public Activities Papers, Papers on Relationships with Other Political Organizations, and Other Papers.

INTERNAL AFFAIRS PAPERS, dealing with the Madison Alliance's business activities, consist in large part of Egli's often cryptic handwritten notes. These are arranged chronologically within each folder. Many of the notes were taken on sheets of paper that had previously been folded into halves and quarters. Since these sheets are now unfolded for preservation purposes, researchers may find that two or more pages of notes appearing on a single sheet are arranged in an unconventional sequence (e.g. page 1 may occupy the lower right quadrant of the sheet, page 2 the lower left, etc.). In addition, the notes in box 1, folders 5-10 are labeled with an acronym designating the title of the assembled body, the date of the meeting, and often a letter designating the day of the week. For example, a notation such as “WAGM-5/13-W” indicates that the notes are from the Wisconsin Alliance General Meeting of Wednesday, May 13. In addition to WAGM--sometimes GM, the following acronyms have been identified: SOB (State Organizational Bureau), MOB (Madison Organizational Bureau), WAYC-sometimes YC-(Wisconsin Alliance Youth Committee), and CC (Coordinating Council).

Most noteworthy among the PUBLIC ACTIVITIES PAPERS is an unedited draft copy of a history of the Wisconsin Alliance prepared shortly before the group's sixth anniversary. There are also materials outlining the Alliance's ideological stance on various issues and its strategies for presenting itself and its positions to the public.

PAPERS ON RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS are filed by subject. Perhaps most significant are the materials documenting the Alliance's interaction with the New American Movement (NAM), with which it chose not to affiliate and which survived it.

OTHER PAPERS are arranged by subject. The Information File provides some indication of the atmosphere of intellectual-emotional ferment within which the Alliance conducted its activities. The forty-four items documenting the Southern Conference Education Fund split have been filed numerically, as they were received from the donor. The Miscellaneous Papers file contains an alleged copy of Ho Chi Minh's will as well as a copy of the script for a play on the model of The Wizard of Oz entitled “The Welfare Wizard of Ours.”

The second part of the collection comprises additional records received in the Archives between 1979 and 1986. Part 2 has been organized in eight subseries. It most notably illustrates the Alliance's state and local organizational bodies and activities through correspondence, policy documents, state organization papers, local chapter records, public activity documents, and photographs and posters.

The CORRESPONDENCE subseries is arranged chronologically and represents one of the strengths of this collection. Although the correspondence only includes the years Ed Berg served as the Alliance's political secretary (1970-1974), this was a particularly active period in the organization's history, as the Alliance formed chapters outside of Madison and began circulating a statewide newspaper, The Wisconsin Patriot. Although some of the content is of a routine nature, the majority of the correspondence illustrates the contacts and relationships made by the Alliance on local, state, and national levels. The correspondence also documents the tightly woven nature of the personal and political activities of the members of this group. Also included are letters to the Alliance covering a variety of topics, from solicitation of funds to criticism of the organization's political stance. Correspondence relating to the Farm Brigades project and letters to the editor of the Alliance's newspaper (The Wisconsin Patriot) are not included in this series, but instead they are located with the papers regarding these activities.

The POLICY DOCUMENTS subseries includes both internal policy documents, produced to critique and develop the organization's activities and purpose, as well as position papers, created as public articulations of the Alliance's political stance. These documents span the entire life of the Alliance and illustrate how the organization's policies, political views, and internal structure changed over time. Although both state and local chapter policy developments are addressed in these papers, the distinction between the administration of the Madison chapter, and that of the state organization is not always clear. It is, therefore, often difficult to discern whether local or state policy issues are being discussed.

The STATE ORGANIZATION subseries is composed of four distinct parts that illustrate the Alliance's operation on a state level. First, the State Organizational Bureau (SOB) was composed of representatives from each of the local chapters. It determined statewide policies and tried to hold state conferences every six months. Included in this series are meeting notes taken by Ed Berg (a member of the SOB), the sporadic newsletters issued by the SOB to Alliance members, and the papers generated by the state conferences. Second, the Alliance established a statewide body, the Strategy Commission, to undertake the task of summarizing the intentions of the organization, as well as defining its political ideology. Both the papers generated by this body, and its final report, are included in this series. Third, this series includes the scant records documenting the organization's newspaper, The Wisconsin Patriot, which was printed and edited in Milwaukee for most of its existence; copies of The Wisconsin Patriot have been retained with the collection. Finally, the strength of this series lies in the nearly complete run of the monthly “Wisconsin Alliance State Newsletter.” This comprehensive newsletter, distributed to Alliance members, includes such items as position papers, meeting notes, letters to the editor, project updates, monthly columns, and activity calendars.

The LOCAL CHAPTERS subseries is organized by chapter beginning with the most active, the Madison chapter. This subseries begins with the meeting notes taken by Mary Radke, a member engaged in the Madison Chapter Council, a group composed of representatives from each of the various committees and created to provide leadership for the chapter. The chapter also held bi-weekly General Meetings where both members and non-members met to discuss the organization and its activities.

The Madison Chapter engaged in a large number of projects through the efforts of various committees, in particular, the farm committee and the labor committee. The farm committee organized the efforts of the Farm Brigades. The Farm Brigade organizers recruited students, teachers, and unemployed workers to assist small farmers in Wisconsin. The labor committee organized a number of strike support efforts. It was often through strike support projects that people became aware of the Alliance and later created new chapters. The chapters outside of Madison were less active, and are only sporadically documented in this collection.

The PUBLIC ACTIVITIES subseries illustrates the Alliance's publicity efforts and public relations. This subseries includes leaflets circulated by the group articulating their ideological stance and political activities. In addition, a number of broadsheets illustrating the wide range of Alliance projects are part of this series. The Alliance was very active in local electoral politics, and the portion of this series devoted to campaigns for public office highlights this activity.

The materials contained in the OTHER ORGANIZATIONS subseries illustrate the diversity of groups connected formally and informally with the Alliance. The most significant relationships documented here were with the Civil Action Research and Education Project (CAREP), Wisconsin Youth for Democratic Education (WYDE) and the Common Market Coop. CAREP was the Alliance's precursor organization and WYDE and the Common Market Coop were both outgrowths of Alliance activities. As a result of their overlapping membership, the Alliance maintained close relationships with both the Teachers for Peaceful Alternatives (TPA) and We the People (WTP). The materials from the other organizations included in this subseries aid in illustrating the political environment in which the Alliance operated.

The RESEARCH FILES subseries is arranged by subject and documents three areas in which the Alliance was particularly active: education, transportation, and the Vietnam War.

PHOTOGRAPHS AND POSTERS in the collection include numerous images of marching picketers with signs, some supporting strikers and some protesting the Vietnam War. One image shows “Andy Ewen-on a Wis. Alliance Farm Brigade in early 1970's” and two images are from a performance of The Mother at the Wil-Mar Community Center in Madison as a benefit for striking Gardner's Bakery workers. Other images are unidentified. One small poster recruits actors and technical staff for a people's history play of Wisconsin. Five oversize posters include “Throw Gulf Off Campus,” 1968?; “Rally in Support of Chilean Resistance,” 1968?; one recruiting summer farm workers, undated; one supporting Mary Kay Baum for the Assembly; and “Cleaver for President,” 1968.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Ann and Dick Krooth, Oshkosh, Wis., 1972; Kim Egli, Madison, Wis., 1975; and others. Accession Number: M72-490, M75-147, M79-296, M80-175, M81-219, M82-320, and M86-190

Processing Information

Processed by Stephen Gerkey and Joanne Hohler, 1979, and by Lisa Saywell (Intern), May 2003.

Mss 474	Series: Part 1: Original Collection
Box   1 Folder   1	Subseries: General Correspondence, 1969-1975, undated
	Subseries: Internal Affairs Papers	⇧
Box   1 Folder   2	Internal Policy Documents, 1969-1974, undated
Box   1 Folder   3	Calendars, Minutes, Committee Reports, 1973-1975, undated
Box   1 Folder   4	Nomination Papers for Alliance Chapter Positions, Fall, 1974
	Madison Meetings and Conferences
Box   1 Folder   5	General Meeting Notes (Egli), 1973 July 16-1974 October 14
Box   1 Folder   6	Madison Organizational Board Meeting Notes (Egli), 1974 March 27-1974 October 24
Box   1 Folder   7	Youth Committee Meeting Notes (Egli), 1974 January 5-1974 December 26
Box   1 Folder   8	Madison Coordinating Council Meeting Notes (Egli), 1974 October 9-1974 November 27
Box   1 Folder   9	Miscellaneous Meeting and Workshop Notes (Egli), 1974 March 24-1974 September 22, undated
Box   1 Folder   10	Bound Notebook containing Miscellaneous Meeting Notes, Drafts of Alliance Documents, and Other Notes (Egli), 1974 January-1974 April
Box   1 Folder   11	Miscellaneous Board Meeting and Other Notes (anonymous), 1968, 1969, 1974, undated
Box   2 Folder   1	Madison Consolidation Conference Notes (Egli), 1974 February 9-10
Box   2 Folder   2	State Organizational Board Meeting Notes (Egli), 1974 March 23-1974 September 14, undated
	State Conferences
Box   2 Folder   3-4	[Ed Berg?], 1973 June 22-24; November 30-December 2
Box   2 Folder   5	[Egli], 1974 May 31-June 2
	Subseries: Public Activities Papers	⇧
Box   2 Folder   6	History of the Wisconsin Alliance (unedited copy of draft), Spring, 1974
Box   2 Folder   7-8	Position Papers, 1968-1975, undated
Box   2 Folder   9-10	Papers Connected with Alliance Candidates for Public Office, 1970-1975
Box   2 Folder   11	Press Releases and Related Materials, 1970 July-1975 January
Box   2 Folder   12	Clippings, 1969 January-1974 April, undated
	Subseries: Papers on Relationships with Other Political Organizations	⇧
Box   3 Folder   1	Wisconsin Youth for Democratic Education materials, 1972-1974
Box   3 Folder   2	Draft of WYDE proposal to VISTA and Related Materials, 1974 December-1975 January
Box   3 Folder   3	Materials Dealing with Proposed Affiliation with the New American Movement, 1974
	New American Movement Convention
Box   3 Folder   4	File (Egli), 1974 July 11-14
Box   3 Folder   5	Report (Egli), 1974 July 11-14
	People's Party Convention
Box   3 Folder   6	Material and Notes (Egli), 1974 July 4-6
Box   3 Folder   7	Report (Egli), 1974 July 4-6
	Subseries: Other Papers	⇧
Box   3 Folder   8-9	Information File, 1966-1974, undated
Box   3 Folder   10	Broadsides: Alliance and Other Groups, 1968-1975
Box   4 Folder   1	Papers Documenting Southern Conference Education Fund Split, 1973-1974
Box   4 Folder   2	Miscellaneous Papers, undated
Box   4 Folder   3	Proofs of Alliance Leaflet, undated
Box   4 Folder   4	Milwaukee Chapter Materials, 1974 March-1974 July
Box   4 Folder   5	Milwaukee Neighborhood Survey Questionnaires, undated
	Series: Part 2: Additions	⇧
	Subseries: Correspondence
Box   5 Folder   1-5	General Correspondence, 1970-1974
Box   5 Folder   6	Open Letters to the Alliance, undated
	Subseries: Policy Documents	⇧
	Internal Policy Documents
Box   6 Folder   1-2	1969-1976
Box   6 Folder   3-4	Undated
Box   6 Folder   5	Resolutions and Amendments, undated
	Position Papers
Box   6 Folder   6	1969-1970
Box   7 Folder   1-4	1971-1977, undated
	Subseries: State Organization	⇧
	State Organizational Bureau (SOB)
Box   7 Folder   5	Meeting Notes (Ed Berg), 1973-1974
Box   7 Folder   6	Newsletters, 1974-1976
	State Conferences
Box   7 Folder   7-10	1971-1973
Box   8 Folder   1-3	1974-1976
	Strategy Commission
Box   8 Folder   4	Papers, 1974-1975
Box   8 Folder   5	Report, 1974-1975
Box   8 Folder   6-8	Wisconsin Patriot (Wisconsin Alliance newspaper) Papers, 1971-1975
	State Newsletter
Box   9 Folder   1-2	1969 November-1971 June
Box   9 Folder   3-4	1971 July-1977 February
	Subseries: Local Chapters	⇧
	Madison Chapter
Box   9 Folder   5	Papers, 1969-1976
Box   9 Folder   6	Membership and Mailing Lists, 1970-1973
	Chapter Council
Box   9 Folder   7	Minutes and Reports, 1975-1976
Box   9 Folder   8	Meeting Notes (Mary Radke), 1975-1976
	General Meeting
Box   9 Folder   9	Agendas, 1973-1975
Box   9 Folder   10	Notes (Ed Berg), 1970-1971
Box   9 Folder   11	Notes (Mary Radke), 1974-1976
Box   10 Folder   1	Various Meeting Notes, 1973 (1 notebook)
Box   10 Folder   2	Nominations for Alliance Office, undated
Box   10 Folder   3	Newsletter, 1973 January-1976 February
Box   10 Folder   4	Campus Committee Papers, undated
Box   10 Folder   5	Community Committee Papers, undated
Box   10 Folder   6	Culture Committee Papers, undated
Box   10 Folder   7	People's History Project Papers, undated
Box   10 Folder   8	Education Committee Papers, undated
Box   10 Folder   9	Farm Committee Papers, undated
Box   10 Folder   10-12	Farm Brigades, 1971-1974
Box   11 Folder   1	Internal Education Committee Papers, undated
Box   11 Folder   2	Marxist Study Group materials, undated
Box   11 Folder   3	Menominee Support Committee papers, undated
Box   11 Folder   4	Youth Committee papers, undated
	Labor Committee papers
Box   11 Folder   5	Papers, undated
Box   11 Folder   6	Meeting Notes (Mary Radke), 1974-1976
	Strike Support
Box   11 Folder   7	Gardner's Bakery, 1970-1971
Box   11 Folder   8	Farah Clothing, 1972-1973
Box   11 Folder   9	Packerland, 1974-1975
Box   11 Folder   10	Miscellaneous Committee Reports, 1974-1975
	Milwaukee Chapter
Box   11 Folder   11	Organizational Task Force, 1974-1975
Box   11 Folder   12	Papers, undated
Box   11 Folder   13	Newsletter, 1974 September-1975 June
	Other Chapters
Box   11 Folder   14	Appleton-Menasha, undated
Box   11 Folder   15	Racine-Kenosha, undated
Box   11 Folder   16	Green Bay, undated
	Subseries: Public Activities	⇧
Box   12 Folder   1	Press Releases, 1968-1975
Box   12 Folder   2	Leaflet Drafts, 1968-1974
Box   12 Folder   3	Leaflets, circa 1969-circa 1976
Oversize Folder   1	Broadsheets, undated
	Campaigns for Public Office
Box   12 Folder   4-9	1969-1974
Box   12 Folder   10	Undated
Box   12 Folder   11	Betty Boardman Campaign for U.S. Senate, 1970
Box   12 Folder   12	Hortonville Teachers' Strike Clippings
Box   12 Folder   13	Miscellaneous Newspaper Clippings
	Subseries: Other Organizations	⇧
Box   12 Folder   14	Civil Action Research and Education Project (CAREP), 1967-1969
	Wisconsin Youth for Democratic Education (WYDE)
Box   13 Folder   1	Papers, undated
Box   13 Folder   2	Newsletter, 1973-1974
Box   13 Folder   3	Red Pencil (WYDE newspaper), 1973-1974
Box   13 Folder   4	Common Market Coop, 1971-1973
	Teachers for Peaceful Alternatives (T.P.A.)
Box   13 Folder   5	Minutes, 1967 May-1968 March
Box   13 Folder   6	Papers, 1967-1968
Box   13 Folder   7	We the People (W.T. P.), undated
Box   13 Folder   8	Mass Organizing Committee, undated
Box   13 Folder   9	Madison Free Press, 1969-1970
Box   13 Folder   10	Madison Tenant Union, 1974
Box   13 Folder   11	National Committee to Overturn Bakke, 1977-1978
Box   13 Folder   12	Miscellaneous Newsletters, undated
Box   13 Folder   13	Miscellaneous Leaflets, undated
	Subseries: Research Files	⇧
Box   13 Folder   14	Education, undated
Box   13 Folder   15	Transportation, undated
Box   13 Folder   16	Vietnam War, undated
PH Mss 474	Subseries: Photographs and Posters	⇧
PH Mss 474 (5)	Oversize Posters