Interview
I [interviewer Dale Treleven] was encouraged to contact Percy Hardiman by his cousin, UW-Madison emeritus professor of rural sociology Arthur F. Wileden, also an interviewee for the Wisconsin Agriculturalists Oral History Project. After a preliminary interview session at the Hardiman farm, I taped three additional sessions after the initial recorded discussion on August 3, 1976. Using a “life history” approach, I obtained many insightful responses to social and economic activity and change on the farm and in Hardiman's rural neighborhood over a sixty-year period. He talked knowingly and candidly about the successes and disappointments of the Waukesha and Wisconsin Farm Bureaus and their affiliated service organizations from the 1930's to the 1970's, commenting liberally on individuals, issues, and events that were most memorable--and often controversial.
Strong-willed and “pretty conservative” (a self-definition), Percy Hardiman himself was a controversial leader during the twenty years he served as a WFBF director and especially during his presidency. Ironically and unfortunately, we were not able to tape an in-depth discussion of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation during his presidential years. With Hardiman's help I attempted to obtain from WFBF secretary-administrator and others permission to use the board of directors' minutes from 1958-1970. Denied access to such vitally important pre-interview research materials, I decided to postpone subsequent interview sessions that would have added immensely to the researcher's knowledge of the dynamics and controversy that characterized the WFBF during the Hardiman years. At the same time, researchers will find a wealth of observations, insights, and information about Percy Hardiman, his farm, his neighborhood, and his many activities as an outstanding agriculturalist and leader during years of revolutionary change in Wisconsin agriculture.
Abstract to the Interview
The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion, and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract below lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
Thus, the researcher, by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button, may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “EARLY DAIRY OPERATION ON HARDIMAN FARM” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 11:40 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “eleven minutes, forty seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “EARLY DAIRY OPERATION ON HARDIMAN FARM” continues until approximately 14:45, at which point discussion of the next topic (“FOUNDING AND OPERATION OF GOLDEN GUERNSEY COOPERATIVE”) begins.
Notice that in most cases, sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “EARLY DAIRY OPERATION ON HARDIMAN FARM” give further details on what appears on the tape between 11:40 and 14:45.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract when used with the index will help the researcher to locate easily distinct topics and discussion among the many minutes of commentary.
Index to the Interview
The index in this finding aid's appendix is keyed to the same time announcement track (second track) as the abstract and gives a single alphabetical listing of proper nouns (persons, places, groups, organizations, books, periodicals), distinct historical phenomena (Depression, Crash, World War II, McCarthyism), and concepts and activities (economy in government, ethnicity, organizing, collective bargaining) which appear on the tape in the abstract. Each entry is followed by one or more citations specifying the location(s) where the entry appears. For instance, Central Farmers Cooperative is followed by the citation 12:2, 09:45. This indicates that a reference to the Central Farmers Cooperative appears on Tape 12, Side 2, within the time-marking beginning at nine minutes, forty-five seconds of the time announcement. The index includes cross references but no subheadings except where there are a considerable number of entries for a heading that may be easily divided.
