The alphabetically-arranged PERSONAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION consists of bibliographies, biographical clippings, notes relating to courses taken with professor Richard T. Ely and Frederick Jackson Turner, honors and awards, information on Taylor's personal finances and his health as he aged, family correspondence, a diary and correspondence pertaining to his foreign study (1899-1901), some information about the life of Anne Dewees Taylor, and material relating to the Taylor home in Indian Queen Point, Virginia which was designed by the noted architect George Keck. The oral history interview noted in this section of the Contents List is available on microfilm in the Historical Society library. Also listed here under the heading “dictation” are tapes for correspondence and writings of various types by Taylor (as well as several by his associate, Halbert Dunn) for which corresponding paper copies were not found in the papers.
The CORRESPONDENCE includes incoming and outgoing letters, all arranged together alphabetically by correspondent or organizational name. Researchers may be aided by consulting the detailed appendix below which lists individual correspondent names, although it is important to know that this list reflects the contents of the collection in 1964, and that it does not reflect the names of any new correspondents added in the correspondence received by the Historical Society after 1964. The correspondence folders contain useful cross reference sheets prepared under the donor's direction which point researchers to other useful material in the series and in other sections of the collection.
Prominent correspondents include Joseph Ackerman, Edward Scribner Ames, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Oliver Edwin Baker, John D. Black, Kenyon L. Butterfield, John R. Commons, Chester C. Davis, John S. Donald, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard T. Ely, Mordecai Ezekiel, Henry W. Farnam, Charles J. Galpin, Benjamin H. Hibbard, Asher Hobson, William Ernest Hocking, Thomas Jesse Jones, Benson Y. Landis, Frank O. Lowden, Edward E. Morehouse, Francis P. Miller, Frank W. Peck, John A. Reisner, Beardsley Ruml, H. L. Russell, Theodore Saloutos, Theodore W. Schultz, William A. Schoenfeld, Max Sering, J. Russell Smith, Henry A. Wallace, Henry C. Wallace, George S. Wehrwein, and M. L. Wilson.
WRITINGS consists of variant book drafts, articles, speeches, outlines, book reviews, and shorter works of other types, together with some relevant correspondence. The section is divided into short pieces (mainly embracing articles and speeches) and books and longer works, both published and unpublished. Both categories are arranged chronologically and both sections should be used in conjunction with the bibliography of Taylor's writings (over 350 titles) filed in the first box of the PERSONAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL.
The articles and speeches section of the WRITINGS series consists primarily of manuscripts, although a few titles are also documented by related correspondence. In some cases the documentation present about a particular item is actually little more than an expanded bibliographical comment prepared by Dr. or Mrs. Taylor. This is particularly true of the early material, although coverage of Taylor's career is better after the 1920's. The papers dating from the 1920's include copies of many speeches he prepared while in the employ of the Department of Agriculture.
Arrangement of the book material is complex, and it is difficult to use because, unlike the articles section, it often includes multiple variant drafts, correspondence, reviews, and some working papers. (Printed copies of Taylor's books are available in the Historical Society Library and in other campus libraries and are not included here.) Using the draft book material in this collection is also difficult because Taylor revised his manuscripts repeatedly and because he often reworked only a portion of a draft rather than the complete work. In addition, he often reused sections or ideas for an entirely different manuscript. This is particularly true of his writing about the events in his life, such as his experiences in the Agriculture Department during the 1920's. Of special note among the literary drafts are original correspondence and reports on the establishment of the Department of Agricultural Economics of the University of Wisconsin (in Part III of his unpublished history of agricultural economics) and the biographical interviews of numerous agricultural leaders conducted by Anne Dewees (and commented on by HCT) in preparation for The Story of Agricultural Economics.
The SUBJECT FILES contain a diverse mixture of correspondence, administrative files, and collected research material. Particularly notable are the reports on his Farm Foundation work; notes and reports on his investigation of agricultural missions in China, India, and Japan during the early 1930's; reports, notes on staff meetings and conferences, and correspondence on the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (much of it relating to the conflict with Herbert Hoover of the Commerce Department over McNary-Haugenism) and Taylor's eventual dismissal; correspondence pertaining to the Tarpleywick Experiment Farm, which he operated while teaching at the University of Wisconsin; and interviews pertaining to the accomplishments of the Vermont Commission on Country Life.
