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Highlights Archives

Papers of Wisconsin and National Democratic Party Figure Philleo Nash Acquired


The Wisconsin Historical Society has just acquired a significant addition to its library and archives collections in the form of the papers of Philleo Nash, a major figure in Wisconsin and national Democratic Party politics and a lifelong anthropologist. The collection includes Nash's personal and professional correspondence from the 1930s until his death in 1987. It also includes correspondence and subject files on Democratic politics in Wisconsin, on Nash's work in the Truman White House, on Civil Rights in the 1940s and '50s, and on McCarthyism.

Philleo Nash rides an elephant through the streets of Baraboo during the 1959 circus parade.
Philleo Nash rides an elephant
through the streets of Baraboo
during the 1959 circus parade.
Philleo Nash was born in Wisconsin Rapids in 1910. While at the University of Wisconsin during the 1930s, he participated in Professor Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College. In 1942 Nash went to Washington to work for the Office of War Information analyzing racial tensions in the armed forces. After 1945 he became a special assistant to President Harry Truman for minority group issues. In 1947, along with Clark Clifford, Nash authored the executive orders that desegregated the U. S. Armed Forces. Near the end of Truman's tenure, Nash became a target of Sen. Joseph McCarthy who accused him of communist associations and leanings. The collection extensively documents Nash's efforts to fight and rebut McCarthy's accusations.

Philleo Nash and his 'Philleo Nash Rambler' campaigning for Lieutenant Governor in 1958.
Philleo Nash and his "Philleo Nash
Rambler" campaigning for
Lieutenant Governor in 1958.
In 1953, Nash returned to Wisconsin and became the head of the State Democratic Committee. From 1959 to 1961 he served as Lieutenant Governor. In 1961 President Kennedy appointed him Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Following his resignation from that post in 1966, he continued to be active in academic anthropology until his death. Nash was also president of his family's Wisconsin Rapids cranberry business, the Biron Cranberry Co., for many years.

The estate of Nash's widow Edith Rosenfels Nash donated the collection to the Society. In coming months, the collection with be accessioned and made available for research use. Information about the collection and its contents will be available on the Society’s Web site by July 2004.

:: Posted March 10, 2004
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