Repository:
Wisconsin Historical Society
Division of Archives and Manuscripts
Area Research Center
Murphy Library
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
1631 Pine St.
La Crosse WI 54601
Date Range: 1988-2003
Size: 8 cubic feet and 18 photographs

Online Finding Aid

Papers of Johnsrud, a Republican Wisconsin State Assemblyman from the 96th district from 1984 to 2004. Most of the papers stem from his work on the Natural Resources Committee and consist of drafts of bills and amendments, reference materials, press releases and news clippings, and correspondence. The files particularly concern water quality, land use, hunting and fishing regulations, and controlling health care costs. Specific legislation documented includes mandating double hulled barges on the upper Mississippi river, limiting non-point source pollution of rivers and streams, regulating the use of septic tanks, restricting nude bathing at the Mazomanie beach, lowering blood-alcohol and speed limits on snowmobiles, regulating the Petroleum Environmental Cleanup Fund Act (PECFA), protecting wetland, managing the state’s deer herd, the prohibition of deer baiting, permitting dove hunting, increasing hunting opportunities for people with disabilities, and making the Wisconsin Constitution gender neutral.

Repository:
Yellowstone National Park Archives
P.O. Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190-0168
Date Range: 1927-1957, bulk 1927-1940
Size: 2.5 linear feet

Online Finding Aid

Herma Geneva Albertson was born on October 11, 1896, in Inwood, Iowa. She lived there until she finished the eighth grade, when her family moved to southern Idaho for two years. In 1915, Herma graduated from high school in Blackfoot, Idaho. For several years after her graduation, she taught elementary school for the Blackfoot School District.

In the fall of 1921, Herma enrolled in the University of Idaho, majoring in botany with a minor in philosophy. With a love of the outdoors, she took as many science courses as her schedule would permit. She was hired as a student instructor in the botany department and was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi honor societies. She also studied at the Puget Sound Biological Station in Washington State during one summer.

Upon completion of her undergraduate degree, Herma went to work at Yellowstone National Park for the summer as a naturalist. To earn her room and board, she also worked as a “pillow puncher” or maid at the Old Faithful Lodge for the Yellowstone Park Company. She helped lay out the first nature trail at Old Faithful and was the only guide on the trail for three years. She increased the number of hikers, from three to three hundred.

After the summer season was over, Albertson was offered a permanent position with the NPS and accepted.
For three years Herma lectured and guided at Old Faithful Geyser before being transferred to Mammoth Hot Springs. Since the Park was only open in the summer, Herma taught high school science and was offered a graduate fellowship in the botany department at the University of Idaho. Herma received her master’s degree in the spring of 1929 and that fall began teaching as a full-time instructor in the botany department at the University of Idaho.

After one year, Herma resigned from the university and applied to be an Assistant Park Naturalist with the National Park Service. Herma G. Albertson became the first woman to be appointed Junior Park Naturalist in May of 1931. During her seven years as a park naturalist, Herma authored and illustrated more than twenty-two articles for NPS publications, including “Yellowstone Nature Notes.”

Baggley felt a growing need for a book on the wild flowers of the park. Experienced in writing manuals during her master’s program at the University of Idaho, she felt that she could produce a useful aid for the enjoyment of researchers and visitors to the park. Dr. W. B. McDougall, a leading plant ecologist collaborated with her to write Plants of Yellowstone National Park which has been edited and revised many times since its first publication and still serves as a guide to the flowers within the Park.

In 1952, Herma became a leader with the National Park Women’s Organization, which worked with the NPS in accordance with the Mission 66 program to upgrade park facilities throughout the NPS system. In the winter of 1931, Herma married George Baggley, who was the chief ranger of Yellowstone National Park. Herma and George Baggley had one daughter, Ruth Ann. Herma A. Baggley died in 1981.

The collection consists of botanical drawings, correspondence, diaries, photographs, publications, research and field notes, subject files, and writings.

Repository:
University of Montana
Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library
K. Ross Toole Archives
Missoula, MT 59812
Date Range: 1953-1987
Size: 19.5 linear feet

Online Finding Aid

Elizabeth “Liz” Reitell Smith was born on September 11, 1920 in Elmira, New York to Charles and Jane Reitell. Smith graduated from the Lincoln School of Teachers College in New York City in 1937 and from Bennington’s College in Bennington, Vermont in 1941 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She majored in theatre design and minored in dance and drama literature. In subsequent years Smith designed costumes for a dance group, spent three years in the Army Air Corps during World War II, studied art in France and in 1952 met the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, and produced his play “Under Milkwood.” Smith and Thomas were close friends until his sudden death in 1953.

Smith was playwright Arthur Miller’s assistant in 1962 when she came to Montana for a Montana Wilderness Society sponsored horse-pack trip into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The trip inspired a passion for the Montana wilderness that led her to a position as the publications director of The University of Montana School of Forestry in Missoula, Montana. After five years in that position, Smith met and married her fourth husband, Eldon Smith, an environmentalist and wildlife biologist for Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana.

For thirteen years, the pair traveled throughout the Western states speaking on the environment. In 1972 they were given the award for Outstanding Environmental Achievement. During those thirteen years, Elizabeth Smith worked as director of the Montana Wilderness Association.

In 1980 she was offered a position as writer/editor at the Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission in Portland, Oregon. She retired in 1986 and returned to Missoula, Montana where she remained involved in environmental issues. Smith died in 2001.

The collection contains materials relevant to Elizabeth Smith’s work as a Montana wilderness and environmental activist. The bulk of the materials includes research, newsletters, drafts of speeches, position papers and correspondence between 1965 and 1980. Some of the research files also contain handwritten or typed notes. The correspondence mainly focuses on Smith’s wilderness and environmental works but also reflects personal relationships with fellow activists. A small amount of papers relate to Smith’s work as a writer and editor.

Repository:
University of Kansas
Kenneth Spencer Research Library
Kansas Collection
1450 Poplar Lane
Lawrence, KS 66045-7616
Date Range: 1966-1985
Size: 6 boxes, 2 oversize folders, 6 items

Online Finding Aid

The Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice was founded in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1976, by the members of the Oread Meeting of the Society of Friends. The collection of their records includes subject files on civil defense, environmental issues, nuclear disarmament, and war tax evasion, political broadsides and bumper stickers, buttons, and organizational records for the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice.

Repository:
University of California, Berkeley
Graduate Theological Union Library
2400 Ridge Road
Berkeley, California 94709
Date Range: 1966-2006, bulk 1975-2005
Size: 16 inear feet

Starhawk, born Miriam Simos, 1951, is a pioneer in and advocate of the revival of feminist spirituality and Goddess religion, and a political activist in peace, environmental, antinuclear, and globalization issues. She is an author, lecturer, and workshop leader in witchcraft, ritual, spirituality, permaculture design, and bringing the power of spirituality to political organizing and activism. She is a founding member of the Reclaiming Collective. She has participated in, among other political causes, the actions of the Livermore Action Group including civil disobedience, ongoing protests against the World Trade Organization, and protests against the Iraq War which began in 2003.

Collection contains manuscripts of Starhawk’s published and unpublished books, collected published and unpublished print material, articles and periodicals, computer discs, and general files which include working files, photographs, art work, and notebooks.

Repository:
St. Lawrence University
Owen D. Young Library
23 Romoda Drive
Canton, NY 13617
Date Range: 1963-1981
Size: 375 linear feet

Representative to the U.S. Congress from the 31st District. Papers contain office files of McEwen and his staff containing correspondence, clippings, notices, press releases, invitations and requests, speeches, photographs, memos, bills, minutes, and reports concerning his committee work, legislation, governmental departments, the Republican Party, his trips and tours, and local concerns and issues of his district. Subjects include public works projects, the dairy industry, the St. Lawrence Seaway, Vietnam, the armed services, St. Regis Indians, abortion, agriculture, environment, and the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

Repository:
New York State Library
Manuscripts and Special Collections
Cultural Education Center
222 Madison Ave.
Empire State Plaza
Albany, NY 12230
Date Range: 1986-1998
Size: 4 cubic feet

In the mid-1980’s, a grassroots effort began to form regarding the creation of a visitor center for the Catskills, a facility conveniently located that would inform the public about the Catskill Park and Forest Preserve, regional history and culture, recreational opportunities, and natural history. In Oct. 1986, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) published its “Proposal for a Catskill Park Visitor Interpretive Center.” The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development and the Trust for Public Land purchased land on Route 28 in Mount Tremper, New York. The NYSDEC purchased a 99-year lease on the property beginning in 1991.

In January 1995, Governor George Pataki re-allocated the funds earmarked for the Catskill Interpretive Center. Since that time, a group called the Friends of the Catskill Interpretive Center has advocated that the State build such a center. As of 1998 only an informational kiosk has been constructed on the site.

The Catskill Interpretive Center (CIC) Collection documents fall into seven basic categories: 1. State-generated reports: initial proposal (1986), environmental quality review process (1987-1993), educational use (1988-1990), and cultural resources (1989-1992); 2. Newspaper coverage (1986-1996); 3. Catskill Interpretive Center Citizens Advisory Committee (CICCAC ) membership lists, meeting agendas and minutes, etc. (1987-1996); 4. Site selection: potential site lists (1986-1988), rating sheets for sites, purchase of parcels by The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development (CCCD) and Trust for Public Land (TPL) (1987-1988), versions of site leases (1988-1989, 1991, 1996); 5. Site preparation, architects, exhibit planning (1990-1995); 6. Additional parcels considered for purchase (1992-1998): Sarlos, Dunkerbark, Satterlee, Gross, Hale, Fazio; and 7. Post-1995 developments.

Within these categories, such documents as correspondence; intra-Catskill Center for Conservation and Development (CCCD) memos; reports; real estate appraisals; tax bills; field manuals; and agendas may be found.

Repository:
New York State Library
Manuscripts and Special Collections
Cultural Education Center
222 Madison Ave.
Empire State Plaza
Albany, NY 12230
Date Range: 1977-1983
Size: 12 boxes

The Wilderness Society is a non-profit organization, whose primary purpose is the preservation and protection of wildlands in the United States. Founded in 1935, it has been involved in major conservation battles for decades. Foremost among the Society’s achievements was the enactment of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which established a national wilderness preservation system. It has organized citizen conservation groups to help shape government decisions on land use policy; monitors federal actions affecting wilderness: testifies before Congress on a wide range of land preservation issues; and educates the public about important conservation issues.

The collection of Wilderness Society records consists of twelve manuscript boxes of material, generated by Harold A. Jerry, while serving on the Governing Council, from November 1977 to October 1982. The records consist mostly of correspondence, memoranda, financial records, policy reports, and printed materials.

Repository:
Montana Historical Society
225 North Roberts Street
P.O. Box 201201
Helena, MT 59620-1201
Date Range: 1879-1991
Size: 10.6 linear feet

Records of the Fisheries Division of the Montana Dept. of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and several predecessor agencies. Records consist of general correspondence (1930-1988); minutes (1940-1991); financial records (1910-1970); hatchery activity logs (1921-1965); job completion reports (1950s); lake and stream survey cards; reports (1906-1990), including studies by the Montana Water Planning Team on river basins; subject files (1879-1990), including probable impacts of proposed Knowles, Paradise, Sun Butte, and Glacier View dams on fish and wildlife; and clippings (1964).

Repository:
John F. Kennedy Library
Columbia Point
Dorchester, MA 02125
Date Range: 1967-1975
Size: 20 linear feet

Linton was an environmental affairs consultant. Papers consist of research and background materials concerning the environment.