Interview
I [interviewer Dale Treleven of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin] first met Melvin Sprecher on November 25, 1974, at Wendt's Cafe, two miles west of Sauk City at the junction of highways 12 and 60. Society field representative James Cavanaugh and I listened in awe to Sprecher's account of how the Wisconsin Dairies Cooperative evolved. While it appeared that Sprecher's explanation was well-rehearsed and often-delivered, that he had prepared neither taped nor written accounts made it essential that the remembrances be recorded for permanent preservation. Sprecher agreed to be taped and I subsequently expanded the scope of the interview to include reflections on farming, rural life, general farmers organizations, and the issue of school consolidation in Sauk County. I conducted the interviews on three separate occasions in 1976--on the mornings of June 21 and August 9, and on the morning and early afternoon of November 10. While the first two sessions were held in the presence of Sprecher's wife, Della, in the living room of their home in Witwen, the November 10 taping took place in the living room of their new residence in Sauk City. Della Sprecher was out of the city on that date. Melvin Sprecher, a large, warm, solidly built, bespectacled individual, was dressed in casual trousers and either a sport or flannel shirt during each of the recording sessions. We sat across from each other separated by a folding card table which held the microphone, cookies and coffee.
The interview provides a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the Wisconsin Dairies Cooperative as remembered by one who played a critical role in convincing others that consolidation was a step in the right direction. A “consolidationist” in other respects, Sprecher also served on the Sauk County School Consolidation Committee beginning in the late-1940s, to attach territory in Sauk county to one of three high school districts. He vividly recalls incidents that reveal the intenseness of the controversy surrounding the consolidation issue. Sprecher also comments on a wide range of other subjects that should interest the researcher: beginning to farm during the Depression; farm changes and improvements from the 1930s to 1970s; the impact of World War II on Wisconsin agriculture; rural get-togethers for work, play, or prayer; the function and roles of past and present cooperatives in Wisconsin; extensive comments on the role of government in agriculture in the context of the program of the National Farmers Organization (whose state office is located in Sauk City); and the changing attitudes of rural banks towards making agricultural loans.
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 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 “CHURCH OPPOSITION IN SWITCHING TO GRADE A MILK” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 02:55 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “two minutes, fifty-five seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “CHURCH OPPOSITION IN SWITCHING TO GRADE A MILK” continues until approximately 05:20 at which point discussion of the next topic (“LEND-LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND WISCONSIN COOPERATIVE. . . .”) begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “CHURCH OPPOSITION IN SWITCHING TO GRADE A MILK” give further details on what appears on the tape between 02:55 and 05:20.
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 in the abstract. Each entry is followed by one or more three-part citations specifying the locations where the entries appear. For instance, Associated Milk Producers, Inc. (AMPI) is followed by the citations 2:2, 19:25, 22:50, 25:55. This indicates that references to the Associated Milk Producers, Inc. appear on Tape 2, Side 2 within time-markings beginning at 19:25, 22:50, and 25:55.
