By Chris Petersen
Title: Gerald W. Williams Electronic Records, 1985-2008
Predominant Dates: 1998-2007
ID: MSS WilliamsGElectronic
Primary Creator: Williams, Gerald W.
Extent: 29.8 gigabytes. More info below.
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.
Languages of Materials: English [eng]
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.
Items from this collection, including born-digital materials, have been digitized and are available upon request.
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.
Items from this collection, including born-digital materials, have been digitized and are available upon request.
More Extent Information: 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
Statement on Access: 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.
Acquisition Note: 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).
Preferred Citation: Gerald W. Williams Electronic Records (MSS WilliamsGElectronic), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
Processing Information:
We acknowledge that materials in SCARC collections and the language that describes them may be harmful. We are actively working to address our descriptive practices; for more information please see our SCARC Anti-Racist Actions Statement online. SCARC describes the contents of its collections using the language and terminology of the collections themselves. Since culturally acceptable terminology shifts over time, some of the terms that appear in these materials are currently outdated or offensive. The term “gypsy” is considered derogatory by many Roma people. It comes from the word “Egyptian,” where many Europeans mistakenly believed the Romani came from. In 1971, at the First World Roma Congress, a majority of attendees voted to reject the use of the term “gypsy,” however some still use it to self-identify.
In this collection, the term “gypsy” refers to the “Asian gypsy moth” or “gypsy moth,” a group of invasive moth species that includes Lymantria dispar dispar, Lymantria dispar asiatica, L. d. japonica, L. albescens, L. umbrosa, and L. postalba. In 2021, the Entomological Society of America (ESA) voted to change the common names, and in 2022, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced new names for these species. Lymantria dispar dispar is now known as the “spongy moth,” and the rest are now the “flighted spongy moth complex.”
In order to provide historical context and to enable standardized searching and access across our collections, we have retained the original wording in the collection descriptions. We acknowledge the racism represented by the term “gypsy” and the harm it may cause our users. Providing access to these historical materials does not endorse any attitudes or behavior depicted therein. For more information, please see our blog post.
[Date of Acknowledgement: November 2024]
Williams, Gerald W.
Civilian Conservation Corps (U.S.)
Forest management--Northwest, Pacific.
Forest policy--United States--History.
Forests and forestry
Gifford Pinchot National Forest (Wash.)
Grey Towers National Historic Site (Milford, Pa.)
McKenzie River (Or.)
Natural Resources
Northwest Forest Plan (U.S.)
Pinchot, Gifford, 1865-1946.
United States. Forest Service
United States. Forest Service--Employees.
United States. Forest Service--History.
United States. Forest Service. Pacific Northwest Region
Wilderness areas--Oregon.
Wildfires--United States--Prevention and control.
Born digital.
Cartoons (humorous images).
Digital audio formats.
Digital images.
Digital photographs.
Oral histories (literary genre)