Finding Aids

View electronic finding aids for other collections, including the Aldo Leopold papers and Kathryn F. Clarenbach papers, in the UW Digital Collections.

Robert Gard Collection

The UW Archives has completed processing the Robert Gard Papers. This project took three summers and was funded by the Robert Gard Foundation in conjunction with the Wisconsin Arts Council and the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts. Call number: Accession 1988/032 Location: Room 434, Steenbock Memorial Library, 550 Babcock Drive, Madison, WI. Access to this collection is made by appointment only, please call (608) 262-0428. Finding Aid: Available online as well as in the Archives.

Robert Gard was an Agricultural Extension Professor of Education and Art Education, as well as Director of the Wisconsin Idea Theatre, and the Wisconsin Rural Writers Association. Dating from 1948-1977, the collection of over seventy cubic feet includes plays, novels, and manuscripts by Gard and other Wisconsin and regional writers, as well as a a wide variety of material on local, regional and state theatres, and arts organizations, and Wisconsin and University history and lore. The extensive correspondence file includes letters to and from Jerry Apps, John Charles Cooper, August Derleth, Warren Knowles, Glenn Pound, David Stevens, and others. The collection also features audio materials and photographs, as well as documents.

The Robert Gard Collection is an important resource for historians of literature, theatre, the arts, the state of Wisconsin and the University. Held in the Archives' Steenbock Library facility, the collection is open to the public by appointment.

Ralph Milton Waters papers, 1927-1971

The Waters papers contain: his general correspondence, 1927-1950, 19 archives boxes, 2 records cartons, arranged alphabetically; reprint collection arranged by topic, 1 archives box, 14 record cartons; and annual reports & consultation books, 1933-1971, 2 records cartons. Call number: Series 12/4/3 Location: Room 434, Steenbock Memorial Library, 550 Babcock Drive, Madison, WI. Access to this collection is made by appointment only, please call (608) 262-0428.

Dr. Waters was born in Ohio on October 9, 1883. He died December 19, 1979, in Florida.

After receiving his medical degree from Western Reserve University in 1912, and interning in Cleveland, he began a general medical practice in Sioux City, Iowa. In 1924, he moved his practice to Kansas City, establishing an anesthesia clinic where surgeons and dentists could schedule time for their ambulatory surgical patients. During a family visit to Madison, Waters visited the new State of Wisconsin General Hospital and met several members of the medical school faculty. He accepted the invitation to come to Madison as anesthetist for the new hospital.

The next two decades found the emergence of anesthesiology as a medical specialty. Waters' laboratory investigations resulted in several significant contributions. The use of cyclopropane as a general anesthetic, the to-and-fro method of carbon dioxide absorption, and the technique of endobronchial intubation during thoracic surgical procedures were among the advances introduced into clinical practice.

The Ralph Milton Waters Biographical File is located in the UW Archives, Room B134, Memorial Library. It contains clippings, faculty information sheet with bibliography, memorial resolution, and biographies.