Interviews
I [interviewer Dale Treleven] chose to interview Jack Kyle for the Wisconsin Agriculturalists Oral History Project because of his long association with farmers and rural people who tended to favor positive governmental interference in behalf of economic and social programs, and who often cooperated politically with organized labor--particularly the Wisconsin State Federation of Labor--in pursuit of such legislation. The Wisconsin Association of Cooperatives, founded in 1944, spearheaded and coordinated the rural portion of a farmer-labor coalition that had historically supported Progressive Republicans, Progressives, and “New” Democrats for decades. The farmer-labor coalition consistently stood at philosophical and usually political odds with a farmer-business coalition led by the Wisconsin Council of Agriculture (later the Wisconsin Council of Agricultural Cooperatives), the Wisconsin State Chamber of Commerce, and the Wisconsin Manufacturers Association (later the Wisconsin Association of Manufacturers and Commerce). Only after the generation of such WAC leaders as Jack Kyle and Kenneth Hones (president of the Wisconsin Farmers' Union) and of such Council of Agricultural Cooperatives leaders as Milo K. Swanton and Gavin McKerrow (president of Golden Guernsey Cooperative) would merger between the two statewide cooperative federations become feasible. The two merged in the late-1960's to form the present-day Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives.
While I had the opportunity to tape Kyle about his years as a cooperative leader, I decided to expand the scope of the interview into a “life history” that would include remembrances about his many years of activity and involvement in politics. That decision seemed sensible since Kyle was relatively inaccessible except for occasional visits to Madison, and that any postponement about expanding the scope of the interview could mean that the information would never be added to the historical record.
I held all of the interview sessions in my office situated on the fourth floor of the State Historical Society. Prior to an anticipated visit to Madison, Kyle would send a note and I would respond by suggesting subject areas we might discuss in the time he had available. Typically, we taped about two or three hours in the morning only, in part because that was enough for one day and partly because Kyle usually had arranged to meet with such former old Madison progressives as Elmer Voight, Laurie Carlson, and Miles McMillin. The more than twenty hours of tape-recorded interview comprise an interesting life story of an individual who was a diligent and committed proponent of political liberalism in the period between two wars that shook and challenged some basic tenets of twentieth century liberalism. The Kyle interview is, by far, the lengthiest, most diverse, and possibly richest remembrance collected for the Wisconsin Agriculturalists Oral History Project. Researchers of widely-ranging interests should benefit from listening to the interview tapes with John K. Kyle.
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 “KYLE FARM” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 05:15 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “five minutes, fifteen seconds”) and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “KYLE FARM” continues until approximately 07:10 at which point discussion of the next topic (“FARM MACHINERY”) begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example the sentences underneath “KYLE FARM” give further details on what appears on the tape between 05:15 and 07:10.
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 easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
Index to the Interview
The index, which is keyed to the same time announcement track (second track) as the abstract, gives a single alphabetical listing of all proper nouns and distinct historical phenomena which appear on the tape/in the abstract. Each entry is followed by one or more three-part citations specifying the location(s) where the entry appears. For instance, Appleton is followed by the citation 21:1, 24:55. This indicates that a reference to Appleton appears on Tape 21, Side 1 within the time-marking beginning at twenty-four minutes, fifty-five seconds of the time announcement.
