The Wisconsin Alliance was a socialist organization founded in Madison in April 1968 by a small group of anti-war activists. The Wisconsin Alliance's precursor organization, the Civil Action, Research and Education Project (CAREP), stressed research and the publication of its newsletter “The Organizer.” The Wisconsin Alliance, however, formed to undertake direct action projects. Its goal was to create and sustain a grass-roots worker-small farmer-student coalition, which emphasized electoral politics and local organizing. During its approximately seven-year history, the Alliance ran upwards of twenty electoral campaigns for members seeking local, state, and national office. They succeeded in placing Mary Kay Baum on the Dane County Board in 1970 and 1972, and Susan Kay Phillips on the Madison City Council in 1971 and 1973. The United States Senate campaign for Betty Boardman in 1970 was not successful.
Initial Alliance attempts to publish a statewide newspaper and expand the organization's geographical base met with mixed results. By January of 1972, the first issue of The Wisconsin Patriot: Voice of the Wisconsin Alliance was in circulation, and by 1974 the Alliance had founded chapters in the Fox Valley in Appleton-Menasha (1972), in Milwaukee (1973), Green Bay (1973), and Racine-Kenosha (1973). Although no exact membership numbers are available, the state newsletter at its peak in 1971 circulated to approximately two hundred and fifty members. However, with internal political conflict and a declining membership, the group struggled and by the late 1970s, the organization became inactive.
Committees on both the state and local levels directed the Alliance. The State Organizational Bureau (SOB), which made major political decisions and coordinated statewide projects and activities, was composed of one representative from each chapter and attempted to hold state conferences every six months. Various committees formed the basis of individual Alliance chapters. At its peak, the Madison chapter operated labor, youth, cultural, community, campus, internal education, and farm committees. The Milwaukee chapter followed a similar format but lacked a farm committee. Both chapters were coordinated and led by a chapter council comprised of one representative from each committee. The smaller chapters in Appleton-Menasha, Green Bay, and Racine-Kenosha undertook fewer projects and were more informally structured.
The Madison chapter, the heart of the Alliance, engaged in a broad spectrum of political and social action activities. It supported various labor actions, nationally and locally. The Alliance was active in the University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants Association strike (1969), the Gardner's Bakery strike (1970-1973), the Farah clothing strike (1972-1973), the Packerland Meatpacking strike (1974-1975), and the Hortonville Teachers' strike (1974). Madison Alliance members attempted to organize unions and promote rank-and-file caucuses within unions.
The Madison chapter also organized community support projects. One of its major ventures was the statewide Farm Brigades (1971-1974), organized and administered by the Farm Committee to aid small farmers. The Alliance recruited students, teachers, and unemployed workers to assist local farms. This project introduced non-farmers to farm life and provided small farmers with people willing to work for room and board. The program was successful but became a point of contention in later years, as the Alliance's meager resources were stretched thin. The Alliance also undertook efforts to support the Menominee treaty rights and was instrumental in starting a Madison food co-op, Common Market Co-op (1971).
In addition to its community organizing, the Alliance was also involved in cultural projects. They sponsored various theatre groups, as well as writing and directing their own plays. The cultural committee also organized the People's History Project, which produced the People's History calendar.
The group also involved itself in youth activities on both the university and high school levels. Most noteworthy in this area was their work with high school students after the Wisconsin Student Union (WSU) joined the Alliance (1972) and helped found the autonomous Wisconsin Youth for Democratic Education (WYDE). Among its other activities, WYDE supported school board candidates, demanded students' rights, agitated for socialist, Third World, and radical speakers in the high schools, circulated a state newsletter, “State WYDE,” and published a newspaper, Red Pencil.
The chapter also conducted women's caucuses, organized study groups, and sent delegations to various socialist and communist countries, including Cuba, North Vietnam, Yugoslavia, the USSR, and Allende's Chile. Fifteen Alliance members toured the People's Republic of China in 1973.
Throughout its history the Wisconsin Alliance, as a group, and its individual members supported various other organizations, both locally and nationally. Most noteworthy of these groups were the New American Movement (NAM), the People's Party, We the People (WTP), and Teachers for Peaceful Alternatives (TPA).
