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Gerald W. Williams Electronic Records, 1985-2008

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Williams, Gerald W.
Title
Gerald W. Williams Electronic Records
Dates
1985-2008 (inclusive)
1998-2007 (bulk)
Quantity
29.80 gigabytes, (8,717 images, 1,680 word processing documents, 43 PDFs, 17 PowerPoint presentations, 10 Excel documents, 4 .dxf computer aided design files, 4 .mp3 audio files, 5 additional files)
Collection Number
MSS WilliamsGElectronic
Summary
The Gerald W. Williams Electronic Records include images, word processing files, PowerPoint presentations and other electronic formats that chronicle Williams's research interests and scholarly productivity during his years working as a historian and sociologist for the U.S. Forest Service. The entire collection is born digital and is available upon patron request or for use in the SCARC reading room. Included are materials documenting the history of the Forest Service as well as various national forests across the United States. The collection likewise reflects Williams's involvement in historical outreach activities and events, his interest in forest fire policy, and his study of editorial cartoons as historical sources. Biographical data and professional documents detailing Williams's work over time are included as well.
Repository
Oregon State University Libraries, Special Collections and Archives Research Center
Special Collections and Archives Research Center
121 The Valley Library
Oregon State University
Corvallis OR
97331-4501
Telephone: 5417372075
Fax: 5417378674
scarc@oregonstate.edu
Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research. The entire collection is born digital and fully available upon patron request or for use in the SCARC reading room.

Languages
English
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Biographical Note

Gerald W. Williams worked for the U.S. Forest Service from 1979 until his retirement in 2005. From 1979 to 1993, he was a sociologist with the Umpqua and Willamette National Forests in Oregon; in 1993-1998, he served as the regional sociologist for the Pacific Northwest Regional Office in Portland; and from 1998 until his retirement in 2005 he was the national historian for the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C. Williams designed and implemented a regional and national history program for the Forest Service which culminated in his appointment as national historian and his authorship of the centennial history of the Forest Service, The USDA Forest Service -- The First Century, in 2000. He has published more than 75 books, chapters, book reviews, and articles and conference papers exploring a variety of historical topics such as the Native American use of fire to manage environments, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the U.S. Army's Spruce Production Division during World War I. Williams is a native of Oregon and earned degrees from Southern Oregon University (B.A., Sociology; M.A. General Studies Social Science) and Washington State University (Ph.D., Sociology).

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Content Description

The materials described here as the Gerald W. Williams Electronic Records were originally contained on 85 compact discs that were donated by Gerald Williams in tandem with a large volume of analog records that have since been organized into several additional archival collections. Following the technical accessioning of this born digital content, Williams's electronic records were intellectually organized into a collection of their own. In its final processed form, the collection is primarily comprised of images in .jpg, .tif, .gif and .cdr formats, as well as word processing documents in .doc, .wpd, .rtf, .txt and .apr formats. The collection also includes smaller quantities of Microsoft Office files (Excel, Publisher, Powerpoint), PDFs and others items created with the Adobe software suite (Illustrator, Photoshop), .mp3 audio files, and .dxf computer aided design files. All collection content is available upon patron request or for use in the SCARC reading room.

The collection provides documentation of Williams' research interests and insight into his activities as a scholarly and public historian. In addition to materials written by Williams, the collection features a great many items authored by other scholars of Forest Service and natural resources history. The collection likewise includes thousands of digitized historic images that were collected by Williams, as well as photographs or scans of other primary source materials unearthed by Williams during various research trips. For items that were digitized by Williams, the dates provided in this finding aid refer to the dates when content was digitized, not the date of the original analog item.

Articles written by Williams and presentations that he prepared and delivered are described on the item level in Series 1 and Series 2. Events that he helped to organize or that he participated in are listed in Series 3, and his involvement with historical outreach initiatives sponsored by the Forest Service is documented in Series 4.

Much of the collection's historic imagery is described in the next three series. Images gleaned from the Forest Service's historical collections have been arranged into Series 5, and images likewise gathered from the National Forest Fire Laboratory are organized into Series 6. Historical images of thirteen national forests and one national grassland are available in Series 7. Many of the image files held in all three of these series were given unique descriptive identifiers by Williams, and several of the image sets held in Series 7 are accompanied by detailed inventories.

Several of Williams's research interests are spelled out in the three series that follow. Series 8 contains materials that document the life and activities of the first Forest Service Chief Gifford Pinchot, as well as historic imagery of the national forest that now bears his name. Series 9 is comprised of over 1,500 historic editorial cartoons that Williams digitized and that generally focus on topics or figures important to the Forest Service or to land use policy in the United States. Series 10 serves as a catch-all for many other topics that Williams researched including forester C.J. Buck, the Civilian Conservation Corps, environmental justice, fire lookouts, the Northwest Forest Plan, smokejumpers, and women in natural resources. The series also contains a collection of oral history transcripts, materials gathered by Williams during three different research trips, and a significant volume of content related to topics in Forest Service history.

The collection is rounded out by Series 11, which contains biographical and professional materials including copies of Williams's vita, annual reports, notes on family, and pieces of writing that Williams found humorous.

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Use of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Gerald W. Williams Electronic Records (MSS WilliamsGElectronic), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into eleven series: 1. Williams Manuscripts, 1985-2005; 2. Williams Presentations, 1999-2005; 3. Events, 1991-2008; 4. Forest Service History Outreach, 1998-2005; 5. Forest Service Images, 1999-2008; 6. National Forest Fire Laboratory Images, 1998-2007; 7. National Forests and Grasslands Images, 1999-2007; 8. Gifford Pinchot Materials, 1998-2005; 9. Editorial Cartoons, 1999-2005; 10. Assorted Research Files, 1998-2007; 11. Williams Biographical, 1998-2005. The contents of series 1-3 are arranged chronologically, and the contents of series 4-11 are arranged alphabetically.

Acquisition Information

These materials were acquired by the former University Archives and the Special Collections and Archives Research Center in multiple accessions in 2007-2016. They were originally described as a component of the Gerald W. Williams Collection (MSS WilliamsG) and were separated for description as this collection in 2016.

Related Materials

The core of Gerald Williams' research materials are maintained as the Gerald W. Williams Papers (MSS WilliamsG).  Other materials that were collected by Williams and that have been described as separate collections include the Gerald W. Williams Collection on the Civilian Conservation Corps (MSS CCC); Gerald W. Williams Moving Image and Sound Recordings Collection (FV 320); Gerald W. Williams Collection on Smokey Bear (MSS Smokey);  Gerald W. Williams Prints Collection (MSS WilliamsPrints); and Gerald W. Williams Regional Albums (P 303) among many others.

Other SCARC collections that consist entirely of born digital materials include the Oregon State University Sesquicentennial Oral History Collection (OH 26), Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives Oral History Collection (OH 35), the Margaret Wynne Fox Photograph Collection (P 287) the Team Liberation Records (RG 287), and the Inspiration Dissemination (Student Radio Show) Sound Recordings (MSS Inspiration).

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Forest management--Northwest, Pacific.
  • Forest policy--United States--History.
  • Forests and forestry.
  • Wilderness areas--Oregon.
  • Wildfires--United States--Prevention.

Personal Names

  • Pinchot, Gifford, 1865-1946.

Corporate Names

  • Civilian Conservation Corps (U.S.)
  • Northwest Forest Plan (U.S.)
  • United States. Forest Service--Employees.
  • United States. Forest Service--History.
  • United States. Forest Service.
  • United States. Forest Service. Pacific Northwest Region.

Geographical Names

  • Gifford Pinchot National Forest (Wash.)
  • Grey Towers National Historic Site (Milford, Pa.)
  • McKenzie River (Or.)

Form or Genre Terms

  • Born digital.
  • Cartoons (humorous images).
  • Digital audio formats.
  • Digital images.
  • Digital photographs.
  • Oral histories (literary works)

Finding Aid Authors: Chris Petersen.
2019

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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