Harold S. Tuttle is an engineer, political and community leader, and conservative from Eagle River, Wisconsin. He served as the chair of the Vilas County Republican Party in the 1950s and was an active member and organizer of the John Birch Society in northern Wisconsin. He was also a member and the president of the Eagle River School Board. The collection consists of Tuttle's subject files on his participation and leadership of a Wisconsin chapter of the John Birch Society; his correspondence with and interest in Joseph McCarthy; and his leadership of the Vilas County Republican Party in the late 1950s. His papers also document the controversy at the Eagle River High School in 1962 over the introduction of conservative books in the school library and the attempts to censor liberal pamphlets and periodicals. Included in the collection is assorted correspondence and clippings from right-wing groups and individuals throughout the country demonstrating Tuttle's interest in anti-communism, isolationism, and anti-United Nations sentiment.
The collection is richest in its coverage of American right-wing politics in the 1950s and 1960s, although there is some material from the 1970s and the very early 1980s. Prominent correspondents include Senator Joseph McCarthy and his wife, Jean McCarthy; Walter Trohan, the Chicago Tribune columnist; Alvin O'Konski, a Wisconsin congressman; William Proxmire, Senator from Wisconsin; and Robert Welch of the John Birch Society. His correspondence with William Proxmire and other congressmen is particularly revealing in his opposition to the United Nations, the Genocide Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban, and UNESCO.
