Knute Hill (1876 July 31-1963 December 03) was born on a farm near Creston, Illinois. He attended Red Wing Seminary, the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, and graduated with an LLB from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1906. In 1908 he married Helen Jensen (?-1936) and began practicing law in Milwaukee and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The family moved to Prosser, Washington in 1911 where taught (later becoming principal and superintendent) in the public schools of Benton County, Washington until 1922. Starting in 1923, he became more focused on farming and being active in the Grange.
Hill served as a member of the Washington State House of Representatives from 1927 until 1933. Hill was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-third and to the four succeeding Congresses. He represented the State of Washington's 4th congressional district from 1933-1943.
Knute Hill was Superintendent of the Uintah-Ouray Indian agency at Fort Duchesne, Utah from 1943-1944, when he resigned. Hill then returned to Washington, where he was a radio commentator in Spokane from 1944-1946. In 1946, he decided to again run for congress as an Independent Progressive candidate, but was unsuccessful. Hill served as a consulting appraiser and information clerk in the Bureau of Reclamation's Columbia Basin Project in Ephrata, Washington, from 1949 until his retirement in 1951. Knute Hill died of a heart attack in 1963 in Desert Hot Springs, California.
In a very real sense this collection is one of personal papers insofar as the bulk of the items is concerned with Knute Hill and his friends without having the status of working papers or office records. The items are those that were meaningful to Mr. Hill over the years and express his selection of the papers he wished to preserve.
Here is correspondence to and from Hill interfiled and combined with other printed materials used during his varied pursuits: tenure as school teacher and administrator; politician; Representative in the Washington State Legislature and in the U.S. Congress; speaker and lecturer to secular and religious audiences; author of "Letters to the Editor" in diverse newspapers; Indian Agency Superintendent; Radio Farm Program reporter and commentator; and Consulting Appraiser for the Columbia River Project.
The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence, speech and lecture manuscripts and outlines, and "Letters to the Editor". Included are personal, business, and official letters from correspondents including: Franklin D. Roosevelt, James A. Farley, Harold L. Ickes, Henry M. Jackson, Warren G. Magnusson, William L. La Follette, William O. Douglas, Hamilton Fish, Albert Gore, Walt Disney, Henry Dvorshak, Estes Kefauver, Clarence C. Dill, Sam Rayburn, John W. McCormack, Clarence D. Martin, Adlai E. Stevenson, Linus Pauling, Roland H. Hartley, Robert Ripley, Ted Malone, and others.
The remainder of the collection includes: newsletters and press releases while a member of Congress; Campaign and personal newspaper clippings; Radio scripts; Pamphlets relating to scenic, economic, and agricultural Washington State and the Columbia River Project; Pictures, both personal and official; and Miscellaneous items, including a manuscript of an extended essay entitled "Why I Broke with Roosevelt."
The correspondence, speech and lecture manuscripts and outlines, and "Letters to the Editor" are interfiled and arranged chronologically by years.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions may apply.
[Item description]
Knute Hill Papers, 1909-1963 (Cage 194)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The papers were given in part to the Washington State University Library in 1961-1962 by Knute Hill. The remainder was received in 1965 after probate of his estate.
The papers were processed by Earle Connette in 1965 and 1966.
Described in: Knute Hill : A Register of His Papers, 1909-1963, in the Washington State University Library. Pullman, Wash, 1966.
MASC holds papers of other previous representatives from the 4th Congressional District:
Otis Halbert Holmes Papers, 1943-1958 (Cage 224)
Catherine May Congressional Papers, 1959-1970 (Cage 304)
>Mike McCormack Papers, 1959-1994 (Cage 690)
Sid Morrison Papers, 1980-1992 (Cage 781)
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.