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Montana Study Research Collection, 1943-1954

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Montana Study research collection
Title
Montana Study Research Collection
Dates
1943-1954 (inclusive)
Quantity
3.5 linear ft.
Collection Number
Mss 233
Summary
The Montana Study was a sociological project conducted by the University of Montana with funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. Records include correspondence, conference materials, local study group records, minutes, reports, speeches and writings, and miscellany.
Repository
University of Montana, Mansfield Library, Archives and Special Collections
Archives and Special Collections
Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library
University of Montana
32 Campus Dr. #9936
59812-9936
Missoula, MT
Telephone: 406-243-2053
library.archives@umontana.edu
Access Restrictions

Researchers must use collection in accordance with the policies of Archives and Special Collections, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, and The University of Montana--Missoula.

Additional Reference Guides

Finding aid in the repository.

Languages
English
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Historical Note

The Montana Study was a project conducted by the University of Montana in Missoula with funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. The project was conceived by Ernest O. Melby, Chancellor of the University of Montana System. He believed that by creating a common awareness of Montana's heritage, the people of the state would develop a deeper devotion to the welfare of the community, state, and country.

In the early 1940s, Montana State College in Bozeman conducted a Rockefeller Foundation-funded project entitled "Northern Plains in a World of Change." At a meeting in Bozeman, Chancellor Melby met David H. Stevens of the Rockefeller Foundation. They worked together to create the Montana Study. Melby and Stevens consulted Baker Brownell of Northwestern University, a noted authority on problems of rural life. They created a project that would focus the University on problems of rural life and find ways of stabilizing the family and the small community. Melby resigned as Chancellor in 1944, became the president of Montana State University in Missoula, and directed the Montana Study. He hired Baker Brownell as project director. Brownell was assisted by Paul Meadows, a sociologist from Northwestern University, and Joseph Kinsey Howard, an author from Great Falls.

The Montana Study was conducted in three phases: a community field work phase using local community study groups, a special projects phase, and a leadership training phase. Local study groups were set up only in towns which requested them. Eventually groups met in Lonepine, Darby, Stevensville, Conrad, Lewistown, Libby, Hamilton, Victor, and two on the Flathead Indian Reservation: the Dixon group consisting of white community members, part-blood Indians, and Bureau of Indian Affairs staff and the Full Blood Flathead Indian Group at Arlee. The local study groups met to discuss the problems of their local communities, to study their local history, and to propose solutions. Several of the groups produced historical pageants as a way of raising the self-awareness of the community.

The Montana Study officially ended July 19, 1947, due in part to political controversy over its mildly left wing orientation and its academic image. However, many of the people involved in the Study continued working on the project without official funding, and the Montana Study continued to function on an informal basis into the early 1950s.

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Content Description

This is an artificial collection, created by photocopying records from several different institutions to gather in one place all pertinent records of The Montana Study. Records include correspondence (1943-1954) among Baker Brownell, Bert Hanson, Ruth Robinson, Joseph Kinsey Howard, the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Montana, and others concerning the planning of the grant, the administration of the Study, and the progress of the various local study groups. In addition, there are conference materials; employee records; financial records; records of local study groups in Arlee, Conrad, Darby, Dixon, Hamilton, Lewistown, Libby, Lonepine, Stevensville, Troy, Victor, and Woodman; scattered minutes; organizational materials; reports; speeches and writings by Brownell, Hanson, Robinson, Howard, and others; and miscellany. A small subgroup of Secondary Materials includes a Masters thesis by Carla Homstad entitled Small Town Eden : the Montana Study (University of Montana, 1987) and a manuscript of the 4th edition of Life in Montana, as seen in Wibaux, a Small Community by John L. Schwechton and Ray Gold (1976).

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Use of the Collection

Alternative Forms Available

Contributing institutions hold their original records. Special Collections and Archives at Montana State University-Bozeman and the Montana Historical Society in Helena also hold copies of this photocopied collection.

Restrictions on Use

Any citation of this collection must include a credit to the source of the original. Publication of any material from the collection must have permission of source of original.

Preferred Citation

[Name of document or photograph number], Montana Study Research Collection, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula.

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Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

Gift of Montana Historical Society Foundation.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

  • The Montana Study

    • General Correspondence

      • Description: Miscellaneous (correspondents include Ernest Melby, University of Montana, David H. Stevens, Rockefeller Foundation, Baker Brownell, Joseph Kinsey Howard, et al.)
        Dates: 1943-1945
        Container: Box/Folder 1/1-11
        Location: The Montana Study / General Correspondence
      • Description: Miscellaneous (correspondents include George Selke, University of Montana, David H. Stevens, Rockefeller Foundation, Baker Brownell, Joseph Kinsey Howard, G.M. Brandborg, Ruth W. Robinson, Frank H. Smith, Bert Hansen, et al.)
        Dates: 1946-1947
        Container: Box/Folder 2/1-10
        Location: The Montana Study / General Correspondence
      • Description: Miscellaneous (correspondents include George Selke, University of Montana, David H. Stevens, Rockefeller Foundation, Baker Brownell, Joseph Kinsey Howard, G.M. Brandborg, Ruth W. Robinson, Frank H. Smith, Richard Posten, et al.)
        Dates: 1947-1954
        Container: Box/Folder 3/1-10
        Location: The Montana Study / General Correspondence

    • Conference Materials

    • Diaries

      • Description: Daily log of activities
        Dates: April 1944- July 1947
        Container: Box/Folder 4/5
        Location: The Montana Study / Diaries

    • Employment Records

    • Financial Records

    • Local Study Group Materials

    • Minutes

      • Description: Montana Committee Organizing Conference
        Dates: February 1945
        Container: Box/Folder 6/1
        Location: The Montana Study / Minutes
      • Description: Montana Study Group
        Dates: undated
        Container: Box/Folder 6/2
        Location: The Montana Study / Minutes
      • Description: Montana Study Liaison Committee
        Dates: 1947
        Container: Box/Folder 6/3
        Location: The Montana Study / Minutes

    • Organizational Records

    • Reports

      • Description: "Life in Montana" Series I-II study guides
        Dates: 1945 and undated
        Container: Box/Folder 6/5-6
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "Life in Western Montana" (reports of meetings in Hamilton, Darby, and Lonepine)
        Dates: 1945
        Container: Box/Folder 6/7
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "Memorandum to the Rockefeller Foundation" (report for grant application)
        Dates: circa 1943
        Container: Box/Folder 6/8
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "Montana State College and the Northern Great Plains Region" (and related reports)
        Dates: 1943
        Container: Box/Folder 6/9
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "A Plan of the U.S.D.A. Council, Ravalli County, Montana for carrying out the provisions of Memorandum No. 1132, of the Secretary of Agriculture"
        Dates: 1948
        Container: Box/Folder 6/10
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: Progress reports
        Dates: 1944-1947
        Container: Box/Folder 6/11-13
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "A Proposal for Continuance of the Montana Study" by George A. Selke, chancellor University of Montana (also includes related, undated, unattributed proposal)
        Dates: 1949 and undated
        Container: Box/Folder 6/14
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "Report of the Second Annual University Institute for Social Welfare"
        Dates: 1948
        Container: Box/Folder 6/15
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "R[ockefeller] F[oundation] Appropriation to Montana State University for Regional Studies, 1944-1947"
        Dates: 1949
        Container: Box/Folder 6/16
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "A State Takes Stock of Itself" (excerpt from Trustees Bulletin)
        Dates: 1946
        Container: Box/Folder 6/17
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports
      • Description: "University of Montana Descriptive Statement of Project for which Financial Aid Is Requested from the Rockefeller Foundation"
        Dates: 1948
        Container: Box/Folder 6/18
        Location: The Montana Study / Reports

    • Speeches and Writings

    • Subject Files

      • Description: Great Plains Studies (proposed Rockefeller Foundation grant by George Smith)
        Dates: 1942
        Container: Box/Folder 7/13
        Location: The Montana Study / Subject Files
      • Description: Handweaving in Guatamala (Rockefeller Foundation Grant for Harriet Douglas and Mary Atwater of Montana State University)
        Dates: 1946-1950
        Container: Box/Folder 7/14
        Location: The Montana Study / Subject Files
      • Description: Montana Project: Fairway Farms Company (Rockefeller Foundation grant for study of scientific farming)
        Dates: 1923-1924
        Container: Box/Folder 7/15
        Location: The Montana Study / Subject Files
      • Description: Northern Plains Studies (Rockefeller Foundation grant to joint United States and Canada project)
        Dates: 1942-1950
        Container: Box/Folder 7/16-20
        Location: The Montana Study / Subject Files
      • Description: Northwestern University regional studies program (Rockefeller Foundation grant to Baker Brownell)
        Dates: 1946-1952
        Container: Box/Folder 7/21-22
        Location: The Montana Study / Subject Files
      • Description: Regional Studies (Rockefeller Foundation grant to Montana State University)
        Dates: 1943
        Container: Box/Folder 7/23
        Location: The Montana Study / Subject Files

    • Miscellany

      • Description: Bibliography from Small Town Renaissance
        Dates: undated
        Container: Box/Folder 7/24
        Location: The Montana Study / Miscellany
      • Description: Book announcements for Montana Margins: a State Anthology; and Small Town Renaissance
        Dates: undated
        Container: Box/Folder 7/25
        Location: The Montana Study / Miscellany
      • Description: "Joseph Kinsey Howard, 1906-1951 In Memoriam"
        Dates: 1951
        Container: Box/Folder 7/26
        Location: The Montana Study / Miscellany
      • Description: Montana Institute of the Arts constitution and quarterly bulletin
        Dates: 1948
        Container: Box/Folder 7/27
        Location: The Montana Study / Miscellany
      • Description: Montana Study Groups Association bulletin
        Dates: 1946
        Container: Box/Folder 7/28
        Location: The Montana Study / Miscellany
      • Description: Proposed short courses for community leaders
        Dates: undated
        Container: Box/Folder 7/29
        Location: The Montana Study / Miscellany
      • Description: University Executive Council minutes excerpts
        Dates: 1945-1946
        Container: Box/Folder 7/30
        Location: The Montana Study / Miscellany

    • Clippings

      • Description: The Montana Study and related topics
        Dates: 1944-1950
        Container: Box/Folder 7/31-32
        Location: The Montana Study / Clippings

  • Secondary Works

    • Writings

      • Description: John L. Schwechton and Ray Gold, Life in Montana, as seen in Wibaux, a Small Community, 4th revision
        Dates: 1976
        Container: Box/Folder 8/1
        Location: Secondary Works / Writings
      • Description: Carla Homstad, Small Town Eden: the Montana Study (University of Montana M.A. Thesis)
        Dates: 1987
        Container: Box/Folder 8/2
        Location: Secondary Works / Writings

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Finding aid prepared by MarcEdit
2009

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