Title: American Friends Service Committee. Madison, Wisconsin Area Committee: Records
Inclusive Dates: 1964-1974

Creator:

• American Friends Service Committee. Madison, Wisconsin Area Committee

Call Number: Mss 886; PH Mss 886

Quantity: 1.4 c.f. (4 archives boxes), 8 photographs, and 20 negatives

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:

Records of a Madison, Wisconsin organization established in 1966 to organize and promote local draft resistance, draft counseling, and anti-war activity during the Vietnam War era. The records consist of administrative reports and minutes of the Madison and Chicago regional offices, publicity and outreach material, subject files, and papers on local programs. The collection primarily documents the conscientious objection program, but there are also files on community and state relations, youth programs, national and international service organizations, and cooperation with groups such as the Friends of AFSC (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Peaceful Alternatives Through Non-Violent Action (PATNA), an AFSC program initiated by Paul Fleer that later became independent. The conscientious objection files consist of records on some individuals whom AFSC counseled, together with information on the Wisconsin Project and other local draft-counseling efforts.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00886

 ↑ Bookmark this ↑

 ↑ Bookmark this ↑

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a national organization formed by the Quaker Society of Friends during World War I to promote peace and social justice. AFSC national headquarters are in Philadelphia, with regional and local area offices located across the United States. In 1964, the Chicago Regional Office began planning a subsidiary office, the Madison Area Committee. These plans were developed to strengthen AFSC's presence in the Midwest, particularly its efforts to promote conscientious objection and organize draft counseling in response to the Vietnam War. John Anderson was the first chair of the Madison Area Committee. Jack Gleason was the first director of the Youth Services Division, and Betty Boardman coordinated activities within the community.

The Madison Area Committee office opened in 1966, and was organized into the national program divisions of Conscientious Objection, Youth Services, Peace Education, Community Relations, and International Affairs. During its first decade the Madison Committee emphasized its Conscientious Objection Program, which was active in the distribution of literature, draft resistance activities, tracking draft law changes, maintaining liaisons with related organizations, and providing draft counseling for high school and college students.

In 1966, the AFSC College and Universities Program formed a Friends of the AFSC group on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, which coordinated arrangements for AFSC campus activities. The Madison Area Committee also founded the Madison Draft Counseling and Information Center (DCIC) in 1968. The DCIC became an independent organization in 1970 in part to allow the Madison AFSC office to devote itself to expanding its conscientious objection programs across Wisconsin.

In addition to conscientious objection, AFSC's High School and College Programs encouraged youth to engage in community, national, and international service opportunities through AFSC's national Summer Projects Abroad, U.S. Summer Projects, and Volunteer International Service Assignment (VISA) programs. In these programs high school and college students volunteered in community work camps across the nation to address issues of housing, employment, education, and poverty. College students also participated in international service programs to improve conditions in Vietnam, Nigeria, and many other countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

A part of the peace education program of the Madison office was Peaceful Alternatives Through Non-Violent Action (PATNA), a program founded by AFSC member Paul Fleer in 1970 to educate local communities on peaceful and effective ways of accomplishing social justice. Eventually PATNA became a separate organization. Seminars, classes screening of non-violent films, and the distribution of literature were also a part of the committee's Peace Education efforts. AFSC also initiated Madison projects that addressed welfare, prison reform, and local living conditions. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the Madison Area Committee has continued its efforts towards peace and social justice.

The records of the Madison American Friends Service Committee provide an important complement to the already strong holdings of the State Historical Society on the opposition to the war in Vietnam. The collection is rich with documentation on AFSC's Conscientious Objection program and on the role of Madison's religious community in the opposition to the war. It is also strong in documenting AFSC philosophy, specific issues that concerned it, and the ways in which AFSC addressed those issues. However, beyond administrative meeting minutes and general correspondence, the records offer little information on the organization's members or staff, subcommittee activities, or the internal procedures or policies specific to the Madison Area Committee.

The records consist of ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS, PROGRAM RECORDS, PUBLICITY AND OUTREACH, and SUBJECT FILES.

ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS contains documentation regarding the committee's founding, correspondence, and a nearly complete set of meeting agendas and minutes spanning the period from 1964 to 1971. There are also occasional minutes of subcommittees on conscientious objection, the fiftieth anniversary, and human relations. In addition, a nearly complete six-year span of Chicago Regional office minutes are also present. Taken together, these files offer insight into internal policy and functions and relations with the Chicago and national offices; as well as planning, implementation, and the results of activities. Also included are scattered financial materials and an occasional monthly report.

The PROGRAM RECORDS series is divided into five alphabetical subgroups: Community Relations, Conscientious Objection, International Affairs, Peace Education, and Youth Services.

The conscientious objection records, which are the most extensive and most important part of the collection, offer important insights into opposition to the Vietnam War in Madison. They are especially strong in documenting the committee's draft counseling activities and its Wisconsin Project, workshops that took place on campuses across the state. These records are of particular interest in that, through questionnaires and correspondence, they reveal the concerns of some of the young men whom AFSC advised and the tactics undertaken to help them. The case records are of particular interest for their documentation of the process to claim conscientious objector status.

A second program division is Community Relations. These records document local projects involving legislation, support for draft resistance, prison reform, and welfare. Although the documentation is limited and fragmentary, meeting notes, correspondence, contact lists, and news clippings provide insight into local and state concerns and the ways these issues were addressed by the Madison Area Committee. Records on draft resistance filed here show how local organizations cooperated in order to strengthen statewide anti-war efforts. Of special note is the file on support for the Milwaukee 14, fourteen Milwaukee clergy arrested for burning draft cards.

The third program division, International Affairs, documents the Madison AFSC's interest in tracking and impacting social injustice around the world, but particularly in South Africa and Vietnam. These records are very limited in scope, containing scattered notes, literature, and correspondence concerning the Vietnam Project.

Peace Education is a fourth category of records within the programs series. This section includes a file on Peaceful Alternatives through Non-Violent Action (PATNA), a group organized by AFSC member Paul Fleer in 1970 to establish contacts with and services to communities. PATNA's project focus was on landlord-tenant problems, police-demonstrator relations, and drug problems in the Mifflin Street area of Madison. Organizational descriptions, correspondence, articles of incorporation (1971), guidelines, reports, and scattered minutes provide significant insight into the PATNA program. Also of interest are records of AFSC's relationships with other anti-war organizations such as the Center for Conflict Resolution (CCR) and the Free University, both of which AFSC cooperated with in order to develop peace-focused courses in the UW curriculum. Records of the Non-Violent Film Project consist mainly of film resources, accompanied by some order forms, correspondence, and notices of community screenings.

Through planning notes, scattered minutes, correspondence, flyers, project descriptions and lists, the youth services program records provide information on the activities undertaken for high school and college students. An important file here documents support for the Friends of AFSC organization on the University of Wisconsin campus. Anti-war activities are also prominently represented within these files, as are national and international service opportunities such as Volunteer International Service Assignment (V.I.S.A.) or Summer Projects Abroad.

The bulk of the PUBLICITY AND OUTREACH series consists of organizational literature, the distribution of which was a primary function of the AFSC. Included in the files is a list of organizations who sent literature, orders, and information on sales of local author Adam Schesh's book, An Outline History of Vietnam. Despite its routine nature, the literature files have been retained intact because they document the organizational contacts of the Madison AFSC and the climate of ideas in which it operated. Publicity materials include radio spots and press releases, information on speakers for community forums, mailing lists, news clippings, an incomplete run of a newsletter issued in 1971 and 1972, and a few photographs of an incident of draft card burning that took place at the Madison City Council Chamber in 1968.

The bulk of the SUBJECT FILES document cooperation with related organizations and the collection of reference information. The majority of this material has been separated to the SHSW Library and the Archives Vertical File, although interesting files on Project Sanguine and University Religious Workers and other Madison clergy have been retained.

Acquisition Information

Presented by the Society of Friends, Madison Monthly Meeting, Madison, Wisconsin, 1981. Accession Number: M81-461

Processing Information

Processed by Toni Jeske (Intern) and Carolyn J. Mattern, 1997.

Mss 886	Series: Administrative Records
Box   1 Folder   1	Founding of Madison office, 1964-1966
	Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   2	Chicago Regional office, 1965-1971
Box   1 Folder   3	General, 1966-1972
Box   1 Folder   4	Personnel, 1966-1973
	Financial records
Box   1 Folder   5	General materials, 1965-1971
Box   1 Folder   6	Fundraising, 1966-1967
	Meeting agendas and minutes
Box   1 Folder   7-8	Madison, 1964-1971
Box   1 Folder   9	Chicago Regional office, 1967-1972
Box   1 Folder   10	Monthly activity reports, 1966-1967
	Series: Program Records	⇧
	Community Relations
Box   1 Folder   11	Legislation-Madison, 1967-1970
Box   1 Folder   12	Madison Draft Resistance, 1966-1971
Box   1 Folder   13	Milwaukee 14, 1968
Box   1 Folder   14	Prison reform, 1971-1972
Box   2 Folder   1	Summer Welfare, 1968-1972
	Conscientious Objection
Box   2 Folder   2	Canada information, 1967-1971
Box   2 Folder   3	Case records, 1966-1971
Box   2 Folder   4	Correspondence, 1966-1971
Box   2 Folder   5	News clippings, 1966-1972
Box   2 Folder   6	Questionnaires, 1967-1971
Box   2 Folder   7	Questionnaire follow-ups, 1968, undated
Box   2 Folder   8	Seminars, 1966-1967
Box   2 Folder   9	Training materials, 1966-1969
Box   2 Folder   10	University of Wisconsin War Project research, 1966-1967
Box   2 Folder   11	We Won't Go Movement, 1966-1967
Box   2 Folder   12	Wisconsin Project, 1965-1968
	International Affairs
Box   2 Folder   13	South Africa, 1968
Box   2 Folder   14	Vietnam: They are our Brothers, 1967
	Peace Education
Box   2 Folder   15	Center for Conflict Resolution, 1971
Box   2 Folder   16	Free University, 1966
Box   2 Folder   17	General, 1966-1974
Box   3 Folder   1	Non-Violent film project, 1967-1971
Box   3 Folder   2	Peaceful Alternative Through Non-Violent Action, 1968-1971
	Youth Services
	College program
Box   3 Folder   3	General, 1964-1972
Box   3 Folder   4	Friends of AFSC [UW], 1964-1972
Box   3 Folder   5	Seminars, 1966
Box   3 Folder   6	Cross-Cultural Enrichment Program, 1966
Box   3 Folder   7	High School program, 1964-1971
Box   3 Folder   8	Pre-Adolescent Enrichment Program (PREP), 1963-1968
Box   3 Folder   9	Summer Projects Abroad, 1964-1972
Box   3 Folder   10	U.S. Summer Projects, 1967-1972
Box   3 Folder   11	Voluntary International Service Assignments, 1966-1967
	Series: Publicity and Outreach	⇧
Box   3 Folder   12	Graphics: Peace in Vietnam
	Literature
Box   3 Folder   13	List of organizations sending literature, 1969
Box   3 Folder   14-16	Order forms, 1967-1970
Box   3 Folder   17	Sales of Outline History of Vietnam, 1967-1969
Box   4 Folder   1	Mailing lists, 1970
Box   4 Folder   2	Media materials, 1966-1970
Box   4 Folder   3	News clippings, 1966-1972
PH Mss 886	Photographs, 1968
Mss 886 Box   4 Folder   4	Speakers, 1966-1972
	Series: Subject Files	⇧
Box   4 Folder   5	Central Committee for Conscientious Objections Manual, 1970
Box   4 Folder   6	Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam-Madison Area
Box   4 Folder   7	Draft law changes, 1965-1967
Box   4 Folder   8	Human rights, 1969-1970
Box   4 Folder   9	Indians, 1966-1972
Box   4 Folder   10	Organizing state and national resistance, 1968-1969
Box   4 Folder   11	Search for Peace and Mideast materials, 1970-1971
Box   4 Folder   12	Vietnam, 1966-1967
Box   4 Folder   13	Vietnam Summer, 1968
Box   4 Folder   14	Wisconsin Sanguine Project, 1969-1972