When word of Wisco's impending demise first appeared in newspapers in March 1975, James Cavanaugh of the Wisconsin State Historical Society wrote to Fitschen to ask if the company would be interested in donating its records to the Society. Following up the letter with a phone call found Fitschen eager to cooperate with the Society. Fitschen felt strongly that Wisco's fate, as a relatively small business, was determined largely by big businesses, symptomatic of the modern American economy, that it bode ill for the American economic system, and that the preservation of the documentation of Wisco's life and death would provide researchers with raw data for studies that might help curb this trend.
On June 19, 20, and 27, 1975 Cavanaugh made four and one-half hours of taped interview with Fitschen. In taping Fitschen, Cavanaugh's intention was to gather behind-the-scenes information on Wisco's history, in order to complement the paper records. Since Fitschen had been close to the company for his entire life, Cavanaugh felt he could provide good insights going back for at least 25 years. There was hope to also tape the senior Fitschen in order to record a similar perspective for Wisco's earlier years, but unfortunately was not accomplished, as he had retired to Arizona and made infrequent trips back to Madison. Also for a number of reasons, the interviews with the younger Fitschen did not cover much more than the 1970s period.
In 1954 John A. Fitschen published The Wisco Story: Cutting the Cost of Distribution and Survival of Independent Retailers, 1925-1954 (see SHSW Library for a copy HD9745 W585 1954), providing most of the basics of Wisco's history--founding, founders, founding philosophy, growth, early leaders, innovations, etc. In pre-interview discussions with John D. Fitschen, Cavanaugh asked him about this book and about the status of Wisco in the early 1950s. It was John D.'s contention that an unsuccessful Teamsters strike at Wisco in the early 1950s contributed to an unconscious policy of non-growth by the company, a feeling that it was preferable to remain small and safe than to grow large and be faced with the problems of labor unions and other issues more characteristic of large businesses. Be it intentional or not, Wisco's volume of business did not grow and the nature of the operation, except for a few innovations and some necessary changes often instituted by John D. in the 1960s, did not change materially from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. When Wisco did begin to change, the change was a decline. The tapes, coupled with The Wisco Story, do cover the dynamic periods of Wisco's history--its birth, adolescence, early adulthood, and declining years; only the stagnant middle years, considered only briefly in the tapes, are neglected.
For research purposes the tapes have value in three main areas. First, for the history of the Wisco Company, the tapes cover some of the highlights of the 1960s, a pretty thorough history of the 1970s, and pretty thorough autopsy. Second, for general United States economic history these tapes treat in some depth the lot of the small business in this 1970s age of bigness, including specific examples of how big businesses are able gradually to push out small businesses, examples of how such 1970s economic phenomena as the wage-price freezes hurt small businesses (particularly at the retail and wholesale levels), and also some discussion of the psychology of big and small businesses and businessmen. Third, the interviews by necessity have a lot of John D. Fitschen in them. Although Fitschen may not be a typical small businessman, he and his ideas are representative at least of a certain thoughtful element within the business community.
The contents list describes, in order of discussion, the distinct topics covered on each tape, and indicates the time-marking on the user tape at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears. These time-markings are keyed to a time announcement, heard at five-second intervals, on the second track of the tape.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic discussed. For example, the sentences underneath “The Political Side of Business” give further details on what appears on the tape between 06:15 and 09:40.
The contents list is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to the tapes. However, the Abstract when used with the Index in Appendix I will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
Index
Because several major topics are discussed at several different times in the four and one-half hours of interviews, an Index to the Interviews is provided in Appendix I of this finding aid as an additional aid to the researcher. Twelve major subjects are listed in the Index, followed by time-markings keyed to the second track of the tapes. Thus the researcher interested only in studying small business in the 1970s business world, should look up Small Business in the Index. There the researcher will find that discussion pertinent to the subject of Small Business occurs eleven times in the course of the four and one-half hours of tape. For instance, the second time-marking after Small Business is 1:2, 16:50. This means that the interviewee has significant things to say about the lot of small business in his discussion on Tape one, Side two, following the 16:50 time-marking, even though the contents list entry for this time-marking would not necessarily indicate that such was the case. Hence, the researcher is saved the labor of examining the entire contents list and is also led to pertinent points in the interview not readily evident from the Abstract alone.
One additional point should be noted for this particular Index. The Index entries for External and Internal problems of Wisco follow the interviewee's definitions, and the interviewee defines problems with stockholders as “external.”
