WILLIAM VOGT PAPERS
Scope and Contents
The collection is comprised of correspondence, publications, book reviews, speeches, field journals, photographs and reports compiled by William Vogt throughout his career. The topics include guano production, ornithology, soil erosion, land-use, and population growth. While the correspondence dates from 1930s to 1967, the majority is from 1945 to 1949 and 1960 to 1967, with almost no correspondence from the 1950s. The newspaper clippings cover Vogt's research, lectures and books. A scrapbook contains additional newspaper clippings in English and Spanish, from 1944 to 1947.
The journals of Vogt's wife, Juana Allraum Vogt, were written from 1939 to 1942 while she traveled with her husband through Latin America. They include descriptions of indigenous flora and fauna as well as personal observations.
Vogts correspondence is first divided into letters written by Vogt and letters received by Vogt. Within that division, they are arranged alphabetically by last name of recipient or writer. The topics reflect the range of his career from ornithology to population planning. Correspondents include Roger Tory Peterson, Margaret Sanger, Bernard Baruch, Ira Gabrielson, Aldo Leopold, and Milton S. Eisenhower. The correspondence includes letters from people taking offence at Vogts advocacy of contraceptive control, and from people supporting that position. Some materials relate to his book contracts and royalty payments.
This series consists of manuscripts, journal articles, reviews by and about Vogt, speeches, and radio and movie scripts. Topics include birds of the American continent, and the effect of population growth on natural resources, especially in Latin America. Biographical materials include brief resumes, lists of awards, a fellowship application for the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and a partial bibliography of his writings from 1933 to 1948. The newspaper articles, written by or about Vogt, concern his activities to promote public awareness of over population and his work with governmental programs on land productivity in South America. Reviews of Vogts books, The Road to Survival and People! The Real Challenge to Survival are also included.
Documents generated by Vogt in field studies, or used by Vogt for reference, are contained in this series. His journals record day-to-day observations made in the field. Some also include references to his personal activities and impressions of South America and Scandinavia. Field notes and reports contain information about bird studies in North America, factors affecting guano fertilizer in South America, meteorology, and soil conservation in South America and Scandinavia. The reports from his work with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America describe strategies and programs to inform the public about population growth and the limits of world resources.
Juana Allraum Vogt accompanied her husband on his travels through Mexico, Peru and Chile when he consulted with governments on land-use programs. Her journals chronicle her personal observations, local events, and the flora and fauna of the region.
The series contains two sound recordings of speeches given by Vogt on Latin America's resources.
Maps of Manitoba and New Jersey and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about Vogt's work comprise this series.
The photographs from this collection serve to enhance the field notes, documenting birds and their habitat. They also detail land use in the United States and Peru. Some photographs depict ethnic populations in native dress at market and at festivals in Peru. Photo Box 3 and 4 are organized with the glass plates first, then photographs and negatives. Where there are a large number of images within a subject, they are subsorted by date.
Dates
- 1913-1949
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
Ownership
The William Vogt Papers are the physical property of the Denver Public Library.
Copyright
All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from material in the collection should be discussed with the appropriate librarian or archivist. Permission for publication may be given on behalf of the Denver Public Library as the owner of the physical item. It is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained by the customer. The Library does not assume any responsibility for infringement of copyright or publication rights of the manuscript held by the writer, heirs, donors, or executors. Reproduction restrictions are decided on a case-by-case basis.
Biographical / Historical
William Vogt was born May 15, 1902 in Mineola, New York. He attended high school in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from Saint Stephens (now Bard) College majoring in Romance Languages. Vogt did graduate work in zoology at Columbia University and studied ecology in Chile while on a fellowship from the Committee for Inter-American Artistic and Cultural Relations. These studies of natural resources in South American aroused his interest in human populations and their dependence on the environment. Vogts article Hunger at the Peace Table
, written for the Saturday Evening Post (May 12, 1945), lead to his book Road to Survival (1948) for which he received a special Gutenberg Award. It exposed the problems associated with increased populations and limited natural resources.
Vogt was the recipient of the field research prize of the Linnaen Society of New York (1938), the Mary Soper Pope Medal from the Cranbrook Institute of Science (1948), the First National Conservation Award of the Isaak Walton League of America (1949), and the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation award in Planned Parenthood (1951). In 1950-1951, as a recipient of a combined Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships, he studied population and resource management in Scandinavia. Vogt died in 1968.
Positions held:
- 1930-1932 Assistant Editor, New York Academy of Sciences
- 1932-1935 Curator, Jones Beach State Bird Sanctuary; Editor, Bird Lore magazine, the journal of the Audubon Society
- 1935-1939 Field naturalist and lecturer, National Association of Audubon Societies; compiled illustrations and wrote the descriptive text for Audubons Birds of America (1937); prepared a pamphlet entitled
Thirst for Land
, a plea for water conservation - 1939-1942 Consulting ornithologist, Compañia Administradora del Guana, Lima, Peru
- 1942 Consultant on South America to the United States War Department
- 1942-1943 Associate Director of the Division of Science and Education of the Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
- 1943-1950 Chief, Conservation Section of the Pan American Union reporting on the degradation of natural resources in South America due to over-grazing, destruction of forests, soil erosion and floods
- 1948 Secretary General of the first Inter-American Conference on Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources, Denver, Colorado, September, 1948
- 1951-1961 National Director, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
- 1964-1968 Secretary, Conservation Foundation (now the World Wildlife Fund)
- 1930-1932
- Assistant Editor, New York Academy of Sciences
- 1932-1935
- Curator, Jones Beach State Bird Sanctuary; Editor, Bird Lore magazine, the journal of the Audubon Society
- 1935-1939
- Field naturalist and lecturer, National Association of Audubon Societies; compiled illustrations and wrote the descriptive text for Audubons Birds of America (1937); prepared a pamphlet entitled
Thirst for Land
, a plea for water conservation - 1939-1942
- Consulting ornithologist, Compañia Administradora del Guana, Lima, Peru
- 1942
- Consultant on South America to the United States War Department
- 1942-1943
- Associate Director of the Division of Science and Education of the Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
- 1943-1950
- Chief, Conservation Section of the Pan American Union reporting on the degradation of natural resources in South America due to over-grazing, destruction of forests, soil erosion and floods
- 1948
- Secretary General of the first Inter-American Conference on Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources, Denver, Colorado, September, 1948
- 1951-1961
- National Director, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
- 1964-1968
- Secretary, Conservation Foundation (now the World Wildlife Fund)
Extent
8 boxes (8 linear feet)
1 oversize folder
1 oversize folio
4 photo boxes
1 photo folio
Language of Materials
English
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift, William Vogt estate, 1969.
Processing Information
PROCESSED BY;
Elizabeth Happy
September, 1998
Processing Information
REVISED AND ENCODED BY
Claudia Jensen
October 2004, September 2010
PROJECT MANAGER:
Ellen Zazzarino
- Birds Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Birth control -- South America. Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Birth control -- United States. Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Buano -- Peru. Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Conservation of natural resources -- Scandinavia. Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Conservation of natural resources -- South America. Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Letters. Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Photographs. Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Soil erosion -- South American. Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Title
- WILLIAM VOGT PAPERS
- Date
- REVISED 2010
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
Repository Details
Part of the Denver Public Library, Western History and Genealogy Repository
