Title: Walter E. Scott Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1804-1979

Creator:

• Scott, Walter Edwin, 1911-1984

Call Number: Mss 656; AC 236; AC 372; PH 3645; PH 3646; Tape 1137A

Quantity: 1.2 c.f. (3 archives boxes), 2 films, photographs, and 1 tape recording

Repository:

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

Archival Locations:

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

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Papers, mainly 1937-1979, of Walter E. Scott, a Wisconsin conservationist, consisting of personal and subject files. The personal files include biographical material, annual Christmas newsletters, and copies of a few of his writings and speeches. Also included are bird-watching notebooks and correspondence with Margaret Elizabeth Armstrong, a missionary in post-World War II Japan. Subject files, which were collected in connection with numerous conservation activities and for a proposed history of conservation in Wisconsin, include original correspondence of Earl W. May, president of the Wisconsin Duck Hunters Association and copies of papers by Adolph Kanneberg, Aldo Leopold, Ernest Swift, and others. One film includes a presentation made by Scott about development of the Wolf River area.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00656

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Walter E. Scott was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in February, 1911. He received his B.A. in biology in 1933 and an M.A. in biographical philosophy in 1955, both from Kalamazoo College. In 1965, he received an M.S. in political science from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

As a young man, Scott worked for almost ten summers as a conservation and nature studies counselor at the Milwaukee Boy Scout Camp. In 1934, he began his professional career in conservation as an employee of the Wisconsin Conservation Department (later the Department of Natural Resources), where he was employed for over forty years without interruption except for service in the South Pacific and Japan in the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps during World War II. From 1934 to 1936 Scott worked as a game warden; from 1936 to 1948 as a game management supervisor; from 1948 to 1950 as an editor; and finally from 1950 to 1977 as administrative assistant to the director. As part of his responsibilities he reorganized the Conservation Department's administrative procedures.

During his career Scott was involved in numerous conservation efforts, including the organization of the state's first game management wildlife research projects (Pittman-Robertson) and the acquisition of Horicon Marsh and the first public hunting grounds at Deansville Marsh. He also served as liaison with the Wisconsin Conservation Congress for several years and was involved with the State Historical Society in a Natural Resources History Project. Scott served as a member of the Natural Resources Committee of State Agencies, 1968-1975, and as assistant to the secretary of the State Recreation Committee. In addition, he was president of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters (and founder and editor of the Wisconsin Academy Review), co-founder and president of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology and the Wisconsin Natural Resources Foundation, and founder of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Alliance. While engaged in these pursuits, Scott wrote many speeches for himself and others on conservation topics. For an even more complete listing of the organizations with which Scott was affiliated, see the biography in Box 1, Folder 1.

Walter Scott died in 1984.

The collection has been extracted from a large volume of material which Scott presented to the Historical Society over the course of many years. Much of this material, which was collected as a result of Scott's wide-ranging interest in conservation, was not properly part of the personal collection established in his name, and this material was distributed instead to other sections or departments of the Historical Society or used to establish collections in the names of other individuals or organizations. Still other material, particularly much of the documentation on the Wisconsin Conservation Commission, was discarded because it duplicated records in the State Archives. Among the collections to which Scott added are the papers of Wilhelmine La Budde, Aroline Schmidt, and S. Paul Jones and the records of the Izaac Walton League; the Wisconsin Natural Resources History Project; the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology; the Citizens Natural Resources Association of Wisconsin; the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters; the Wisconsin Natural Resources Foundation; and the University League. The remaining Scott collection is divided into two groups of papers: personal papers and subject files.

The PERSONAL PAPERS, which primarily contain papers of Scott's own creation, comprise only a small part of the collection; unfortunately they reveal little of Scott's personality and interests. Included are biographical materials; issues of the newsy “Hickory Hill Herald,” the annual Scott family Christmas letter; bird-watching notebooks; and articles and a few of the over 2000 speeches Scott is reputed to have written. These files also contain two folders of correspondence: one from Margaret Elizabeth Armstrong, a Canadian missionary in Toyama, Japan, who helped Scott in his counter-intelligence work after World War II, and another from Dr. and Mrs. Manfred Ludicke and Dr. Friedrich Goethe, Germans to whom the Scotts sent packages of books and clothing after the war. Miss Armstrong's letters are mainly concerned with everyday matters such as life at the mission and the mission school, but they also offer some insight into Japan during the Allied Occupation. Accompanying Miss Armstrong's correspondence are several photographs and a narrative by a Japanese which she interpreted concerning events before, during and after the August 1945 bombing of Toyama.

The SUBJECT FILES consist of material collected by Scott in the course of his many activities and as research material for an intended history of Wisconsin conservation. These files represent only a small portion of the garage-full of reference materials which Scott once had in his possession. Within the files are reports and correspondence on various environmental causes with which Scott was involved, notably: pesticides in Lake Michigan (1968) and Project Sanguine (1969-1971). The files also include papers and some original historical documents relating to public lands matters which Scott reportedly salvaged from wastebaskets at the State Capitol. He also collected material on famous Wisconsin conservationists, including miscellaneous correspondence of Ernest Swift, former director of the Wisconsin Conservation Department. Under the heading Wisconsin Duck Hunters Association are three folders of original correspondence of Ernest May, president of that association, pertaining to the Rock Prairie Goose Refuge and changes in Wisconsin's goose hunting laws. It is not known how Scott acquired this correspondence. A number of miscellaneous speeches, reports, and papers have been filed under the category entitled “writings of others”; included are papers by Aldo Leopold, Adolph Kanneberg, and Ernest Swift.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Mr. and Mrs. Walter E. Scott, Madison, Wisconsin, 1948-1985. Accession Number: Portions accessioned without numbers; M61-192, -193, -193-1; M62-36 (missing), -103; M63-125 (discarded), -125-1, -244; M64-71; M65-257, -350, -382, -382-1, -382-2 (missing), -382-3, -409; M66-13, -13-1, -209, -216, -218; -231; M67-78, -184, -185, -284, -312, -325, -332; M69-419; M71-12, -19; M72-422; M74-282, -299, -325; M75-8 (missing), -328; M76-23, -88, -325, -395; M77-25, -94; M78-44, -634; M79-363, -572; M80-49; M81-589; M85-153, -248

Processing Information

Processed by Kathy Oggins (1985 FGH summer class) and Carolyn J. Mattern, 1986.

	Series: Personal Files
Mss 656 Box   1 Folder   1	Biographical and family papers, 1804-1977
Box   1 Folder   2	Bird-watching notebooks, 1937-1964
Box   1 Folder   3	Certificates and awards, 1941-1977
	Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   4	Armstrong, Margaret Elizabeth, 1945-1959
PH 3646	Photographs re: Armstrong in Japan
Mss 656 Box   1 Folder   5	German letters of Dr. and Mrs. Manfred Ludicke and Dr. Friedrich Goethe, 1947-1948
Box   1 Folder   6	Hickory Hill Herald, 1941-1979
Box   1 Folder   7	Speeches, 1957-1967
AC 236	Film footage of speech, ca. 1961 Scope and Content Note: Scott explaining the legislative bill for the development of the Wolf River area.
Mss 656 Box   1 Folder   8	Writings, 1946-1979
	Series: Subject Files	⇧
Box   1 Folder   9	Albino deer, 1947-1949
Box   1 Folder   10	Boundary water canoe area correspondence, 1964
AC 372	Cherokee Marsh film footage, n.d.
Mss 656 Box   1 Folder   11	Game management in Wisconsin, 1936-1963
	Natural Resources History Project
Box   2 Folder   1	Historical documents, 1860-1938
	Historical writings, see Writings of others
Box   2 Folder   2	Notable Wisconsin conservationists, 1937-1969
Box   2 Folder   3	Significant conservation dates in Wisconsin
Box   2 Folder   4	Miscellany, 1947-1970
	Organizations and foundations, 1940-1971
Box   2 Folder   5	Coulee Experimental Forest, 1960
Box   2 Folder   6	Gordon MacQuarrie Foundation, 1948-1967
Box   2 Folder   7	MacKenzie Environmental Center, 1971
Box   2 Folder   8-11	Wisconsin Duck Hunters Association, Earl W. May correspondence, 1940-1947
Box   2 Folder   12	Pesticides in Lake Michigan, 1968
	Project Sanguine
Box   2 Folder   13	1969-1970
Box   3 Folder   1	1971
Box   3 Folder   2	Wisconsin water legislation, 1955-1959
Tape 1137A	Should Wisconsin Water Laws be Changed, 1957? Scope and Content Note: Tape of “The Open Question,” a public service program of the Milwaukee Journal Station (WTMJ), presented in cooperation with the Leagues of Women Voters of Milwaukee County. Walter Scott is one of the interviewers, along with R.G. Lynch of the Milwaukee Journal and Roy Tulane, assistant attorney general for Wisconsin. The featured guest is Professor Jacob Beuscher of the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Mss 656	Writings of others
Box   3 Folder   3	Alft, William, 1965
Box   3 Folder   4	Clayton, James L., 1965
Box   3 Folder   5	A Collection of ... Stories, Incidents, and Statements ... on the Rural Zoning Movement, 1945
PH 3645	Photographs
Mss 656 Box   3 Folder   6	Corrigan, George, 1965
Box   3 Folder   7	Damm, James J., 1968
Box   3 Folder   8	Griffith, Edward M., ca. 1915
Box   3 Folder   9	Kanneberg, Adolph, 1928
Box   3 Folder   10	Leopold, Aldo, 1925-1948
Box   3 Folder   11	Morris, William W., ca. 1908-1944
Box   3 Folder   12	Motl, Laurence, 1966
Box   3 Folder   13	Olson, Sigurd, 1964
Box   3 Folder   14	Schwartz, James A., 1969
Box   3 Folder   15	Swift, Ernest, 1936-1969
Box   3 Folder   16	Voight, L.P., 1961
Box   3 Folder   17	Miscellany