The David Cherry Papers, 1966-1969, cover primarily the years 1967-1968, and contain material which he gathered in Madison, Wisconsin--the bulk of it at the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The collection includes correspondence, minutes, membership lists, flyers, memoranda, handbills, leaflets, pamphlets, newsletters and other miscellaneous items. There is one folder of correspondence with the State Historical Society of Wisconsin describing the collection and its research value. The collection, however, deals primarily with the Teaching Assistants Association (1966-1969), student activism (Oct. 1967-Feb. 1969), student departmental associations (Oct. 1967-Feb. 1969), and educational reform in Madison (1968). Cherry arranged this collection, meticulously dated it, and organized it by subjects and thereafter chronologically. He also included revealing marginalia about the authorship, origin, purpose, and effect of these various documents.
Material on the TAA includes items which Cherry collected or Xeroxed from his own files and from those of Robert Muehlenkamp, president of the TAA (1968), and of George Browder, chairman of the TAA Grievance Committee (1966-1967). The collection has some correspondence of the TAA (1967-1968) with departments and faculty concerning the recognition of the TAA and TA's working conditions; and with activists and administrators at other universities dealing with the status of teaching assistants and educational reform. It also has TAA minutes (1966-1969), lists of members of the TAA (1967-1968), its constitution (1968), various reports, memoranda, leaflets, petitions, press releases and handbills (1966-1969). There are also documents on a TAA education project which researched ways to reform university teaching methods and curriculum (1968) and a valuable comprehensive historical analysis of the TAA by UW undergraduate Leonard Goldner (1968).
The student activism files deal with the Dow demonstrations and their after-math (October-December, 1967), anti-draft organization within the History Department (1968), and the Black Strike (February, 1969). The Dow demonstration items are comprised of leaflets and handbills, a tape interview of witnesses to the violence on October 17, 1967, and a series of inter-departmental memoranda from the Sociology Department which demonstrate the effect of the turmoil on the UW faculty (Oct. 1967-Jan. 1969). The Black Strike items consist of handbills and leaflets. There are a few leaflets and handbills dealing with anti-draft organizing within the UW History Department.
The material on student departmental associations includes the membership lists of the UW Philosophy Students Association and of the History Students Association (ESA) (1968); minutes of the HSA (Fall 1968); pamphlets and newsletters of the English, History, and Philosophy Students Associations (1968); a list of departmental organizers (Nov. 1968); and general correspondence of the HSA (Fall 1968). There are numerous handbills, leaflets, and other documents which deal with these organizations. Cherry identified the author of several of these leaflets and pamphlets.
The educational reform material reflects Cherry's involvement in the TAA and ESA, and also the activities of Bruce Amundsen, a math teacher at Madison Central University High School (MCUHS), which was staffed, in part, by student teachers from the university. Cherry's own collection includes reports of student-faculty committees, leaflets, handbills, critiques of the educational system, and a few newspaper clippings dealing with the 1968 Final Report of the UW Board of Visitors. Amundsen's collection has reports of student council meetings, handouts relating to educational reform, and memoranda from the principal of MCUHS, William Marsh, dealing with the expression of political opinions by teachers and with student grooming codes.
The correspondence of the TAA and HSA contains many requests for information and publications from students and faculty members at other colleges. The HSA file contains a letter from Melvin Greenberg to David Cherry, Oct. 31, 1968, concerning secrecy at public meetings and a letter from Cherry, Nov. 1968, to June Oppenheimer of the Daily Cardinal, the UW student newspaper, concerning a report of a history departmental meeting.
One folder of printed materials re UW student activism, 1966-1969, was separated to the Social Action Vertical File.
