Title: Adam Schesch Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1965-1974

Creator:

• Schesch, Adam

Call Number: Mss 534; Tape 823A

Quantity: 0.8 c.f. (2 archives boxes) and 3 tape recordings

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Schesch, a Madison anti-war activist, containing correspondence, reports, minutes, writings, and printed matter pertaining to a variety of organizations with which he was prominently involved. Among these are the Madison Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the Student Peace Center, the University of Wisconsin Committee to End the War in Vietnam, and the Vietnam Civic Action Research and Education Project. The tapes are an oral history interview concerning his experiences with the above organizations and a 1973 press conference concerning experiences during the September, 1973 coup in Chile.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00534

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Anti-war and community activist Adam Schesch was born September 9, 1942, and raised in the New York City area. He graduated from Columbia in 1964 in history and received an M.A. in tropical history from the University of Wisconsin in 1967, with a thesis entitled “The Organizing Tactics of the Vietnamese Communist Party before World War II.”

By 1965 this research interest in Southeast Asia combined with a new political awareness to lead Schesch to a prominent role in the anti-war movement at the University of Wisconsin. He served as research director of the University Committee to End the War in Vietnam and when that was taken over by the Madison-based National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, he also became head of its research committee. Schesch also headed the Student Peace Center, served as chairman of the Madison Committee to End the War in Vietnam, was a sponsor of the 1968 Vietnam Referendum, and authored An Outline History of Vietnam.

With the decline of the National Coordinating Committee in 1967, Schesch's interest turned toward broad-based community organizing. In 1967 he helped launch the Vietnam Civic Action Research and Education Project (Vietnam C.A.R.E. Project) to organize local Wisconsin opposition to the war. Schesch was a co-founder of the Madison Research Council, which examined the city's political and economic problems. An early member of the Wisconsin Alliance, Schesch ran for mayor with its support in 1969.

More recently he has been a social studies teacher in a high school equivalency program, spent several years studying in Chile, worked with the U.W. Extension, and developed textbooks and curricula for social studies for community education.

The papers pertain to Schesch's involvement with a host of antiwar and community organizing groups in Madison and are arranged as an alphabetical subject file. Most of the folder titles pertain to organizations, although a few consist of generically-sorted material that could not be so identified. The bulk of the collection relates to the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam and contains material which supplements documentation in the NCC records also held by the Society. Included are correspondence, October 1965-April 1966, mainly incoming and mainly regarding research conducted by Schesch's committee. There are some letters to other members of the national staff. Prominent correspondents include Donna Allen, Bradford Lyttle, Harrop Freeman, and David McReynolds. There are also reports and miscellaneous papers of the information and research committee, a report of a meeting with SANE in New York City which Schesch attended for the NCC, an agenda for a staff meeting to discuss dissolution of NCC and its future, and materials pertaining to a possible regional structure.

Other groups represented include the Madison Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the Student Peace Center, Students for a Democratic Society, the University of Wisconsin Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the Vietnam Civic Action Research and Education Project, and the Wisconsin Alliance. Of special interest is a notebook kept by Schesch in 1967 as chairman of the Madison CEWVN that includes minutes and notes; two reports by Schesch on the 1969 Chicago convention of SDS; an early version of his Outline History of Vietnam (two later versions are available in the Historical Society Library) and Organizing a Vietnam Protest Committee, both issued by the University CEWVN; and planning documents related to the Vietnam C.A.R.E. project. Also included are drafts of articles published in U.W. CEWVN's newsletter Crisis and some manuscripts which appear to have been intended for publication in Crisis. Filed under the heading “research leaflets” are papers by members of an unidentified Madison research group. Two folders entitled Vietnam papers contain unpublished or near-print articles about Vietnam apparently collected by Schesch during the course of his research.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Adam Schesch, Madison, Wisconsin, 1973-1974. Accession Number: M73-326, M74-319, 228

Processing Information

Processed by Carolyn J. Mattern, April 1980.

Mss 534 Box   1 Folder   1	Biographical Material, 1968, 1970
Box   1 Folder   2	Correspondence, miscellaneous, 1966-1970
Box   1 Folder   3	Free University, 1967
Box   1 Folder   4	Miscellaneous Madison & University of Wisconsin groups, undated
Box   1 Folder   5	Dow demonstration, 1967, October
Box   1 Folder   6	Madison Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 1967
Box   1 Folder   7	Madison Research Council, circa 1968
	National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam
Box   1 Folder   8	Correspondence, 1965-1966
Box   1 Folder   9	Information and Research Committee, 1965-1966
Box   1 Folder   10	Regional organization, undated
Box   1 Folder   11	Reports, 1966, undated
Box   1 Folder   12	Staff meeting agenda, 1967
Box   1 Folder   13	Research Leaflets, undated
Box   1 Folder   14	Student Peace Center, circa 1967
Box   1 Folder   15	Students for a Democratic Society, 1969
Box   1 Folder   16	University of Wisconsin Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 1965
Box   2 Folder   1	Crisis articles, 1965
Box   2 Folder   2	Crisis proposed articles, undated
Box   2 Folder   3	Vietnam bibliographies, undated
Box   2 Folder   4	Vietnam Civic Action Research and Education Project, 1967
Box   2 Folder   5-6	Vietnam papers, undated
Box   2 Folder   7	Wisconsin Alliance, 1969-1970
Box   2 Folder   8	Writings, miscellaneous, undated
Box   2 Folder   9	Miscellany, undated
Box   2 Folder   1O	Tape recording abstracts
Tape 823A No.   3	Press conference, October 2, 1973 conducted by Adam and Pat Garrett-Schesch Scope and Content Note: Regarding their experiences during the September 1973 coup in Chile, their subsequent arrest, and the oppression of the new regime.
No.   1-2	Oral history interview, July 24, 1974, with Adam Schesch Scope and Content Note: Conducted by the SHSW staff members Sarah Cooper and Michael Kohl, concerning the national and Madison anti-war movement, primarily the tactics, politics, and splintering of the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam. He also discusses the evolution of his own political ideas.