The Hammer Papers consist of biographical material, correspondence, editorials, essays, manuscripts, reports, radio talks, speeches, notes, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, book reviews, charts, and memoranda. Although they span the years 1899-1968, the main body of the collection covers the period from 1944 when Hammer began work for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture to his death in 1965. As a result, virtually no documentation exists concerning his youth or military service during World War I, and the material concerning his early career with various rural daily and weekly newspapers is sketchy, consisting mainly of editorials and fragmentary correspondence.
The main body of the collection consists of AGRICULTURAL FILES and SCANDINAVIAN-AMERICAN FILES. These two subject categories roughly correspond to the two main phases of his career, although there is some overlap within the files. They are preceded by a file of miscellaneous BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL concerning Hammer's life.
The AGRICULTURAL FILES are subdivided into three subseries, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Files, Agricultural Subject Files, and Miscellaneous Subject Files. Each of these files is alphabetically arranged. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Files are comprised of correspondence, editorials, essays, manuscripts, reports, radio talks, speeches, and memoranda. Although the emphasis is on his tenure as head of public relations for the Agriculture Department, a few items relate to his positions with the Faribault Daily News, the Jackson Republic, and the Lone Rock Journal. The files primarily document the public relations products - the articles, releases, and radio talks which Hammer wrote - rather than the policy decisions which went into their creation. The reports concern marketing strategies and progress in agricultural production, his radio talks concentrate on various aspects of the history and popular culture of agriculture in Wisconsin, and the speeches are a collection of addresses given by Hammer and by various other members of the Department including W. A. Duffy. The unpublished book manuscript is a history of Wisconsin agriculture from its beginning to the 1940's.
The Agricultural Subject Files are a collection of reports, notes, memoranda, and other resource material collected by Hammer for use in his publicity. The Miscellaneous Subject Files concern other activities from this period of his career, the Public Relations Club of Madison and the American Legion.
The SCANDINAVIAN-AMERICAN FILES are divided into administrative files pertaining to the Sons of Norway and Scandinavian-American Subject Files. The Sons of Norway records include correspondence, notes, reports, articles, essays, books, reviews, and memoranda which are then arranged according to Hammer's various functional responsibilities: internal administration, fraternal affairs, inter-fraternal affairs, the Sons of Norway magazine, and his trip to Norway.
The Subject Files are a compilation of research notes, correspondence, charts, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and memoranda pertaining to a wide spectrum of Scandinavian-American history and culture. Particularly extensive are the correspondence and notes on authors and scholars. Some of the material concerns contemporary Scandinavian-American individuals and affairs such as Sverre Rolvaag, the Ygdrasil Literary Society, and sangerfests, but the majority of the material is concerned with the historical controversies surrounding early Viking settlement in North America, the Kensington Runestone, and Leif Erikson.
Miscellaneous photographs received with this collection have been filed in various name files in the Visual and Sound Archives.
