The Pohl papers primarily document her activities in organizations that promoted conservation and conservation education. There is little here about her personal life or her own career as an elementary school teacher in Milwaukee or about the specific curriculum she used to teach environmental awareness. The files are arranged as an alphabetical subject file, with most of the topics pertaining to the organizations with which she was involved and in particular to the La Budde Memorial Chapter of the Izaak Walton League. Pohl organized this chapter for women in honor of her friend and fellow Wisconsin conservationist Wilhelmine La Budde. However, none of these organizational files in the collection appear to be the official files.
About her involvement in the Wisconsin Division of the Izaak Walton League is correspondence pertaining to the Education Committee and president William Fisk. The Milwaukee chapter is documented by her correspondence as president during the early 1950s. Among the documented subjects for this period is the preservation of the Namekagon and Wolf as scenic wild rivers through correspondence with leaders such as Sigurd Olson and Howard Zahniser. There is also correspondence pertaining to efforts to launch conservation public speaking programs within the Parent Teacher Association and the 4-H Club. The evidence is particularly rich on her prolonged dispute with Milwaukee chapter president Ralph Peterson. This controversy helps to document the history of the La Budde chapter, since its formation was a consequence. The chronologically arranged La Budde files, which date from 1959 to 1974, include a constitution and by-laws, many bulletins and flyers, correspondence, occasional minutes, and a file on awards.
Other organizations that are well documented include the Wisconsin Council for Conservation Education, the Wisconsin Resource Conservation Council, and the Young Wisconsin Conservationist program. Other aspects of her achievements are files about her relationship with Walter Scott and other officials of the Wisconsin Conservation Department and her lobbying of political leaders such as Henry Reuss on topics such as the problem of the Milwaukee River watershed. The correspondence with Reuss, Gaylord Nelson, and other politicians appears in the file on legislation. Also in the collection are a few materials on conservation education apparently collected by Pohl: a 1936 student project on forestry and two reports on the conservation program within the Milwaukee Public School System during the 1970s.
The papers include a file of Haskell Noyes, an early IWL leader, about the purchase of Moon Lake in the town of Auburn, Fond du Lac County during the 1920s and 1930s, and its subsequent presentation to the Wisconsin Conservation Department. This file includes correspondence and deeds, but no explanation of why it was in Pohl's possession. Of similarly unknown provenance is an illustrated minute book, 1930-1931, of the Walton Boosters, perhaps a men's club within the Milwaukee Chapter.
