State parks are often the forgotten cousins of much larger and well-known national parks, but they contain just as many scenes of striking beauty and opportunities for recreation. One advantage is that they are often less crowded than national parks and provide more peace and quiet for your rest and relaxation–not to mention that they are scattered throughout Wyoming (and all other states in the Union), so your driving distances are often much shorter, wherever you might live. We’ve highlighted several of the state parks here in Wyoming and have included photographs from our collections to give you a taste of what to expect if you visit!
Sinks Canyon State Park near Lander, WY contains a great mystery! Water from the Popo Agie River disappears down a sinkhole and reappears from the ground about a mile away. Geologists still aren’t certain of the route the water takes to reemerge, but due to dye tests, they do know that the water source is in fact the sinkhole.
This photo shows the sink hole at Sinks Canyon, sometime between 1900 and 1918. Box 20, W.B.D. and Annette B. Gray papers, Collection No. 1053, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
Hot Springs State Park near Thermopolis, WY is an absolute haven for travelers who can’t get enough of mineral hot springs. Some pools are meant for admiring above the water, while others are perfect for taking a relaxing dip. The mineral formations are astounding!
This undated photo shows the Tepee Fountain in Hot Springs State Park. Ludwig – Svenson Collection, Collection No. 00167, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
Guernsey State Park near Guernsey, WY offers plentiful opportunities for boating and fishing, but also has some fantastic examples of buildings constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s. Many of the hiking trails built by the CCC have been restored and visitors can access these as well.
This undated map shows the mountains near Douglas, Guernsey, and Lusk. If you click on the image and take a look at the area near Guersney, you can see that the Guernsey Dam and Reservoir have not yet been built, which means this map probably dates from before 1925, when dam construction began. Box 103, Samuel H. Knight papers, Collection No. 400044, American Heritage Center., University of Wyoming.
Seminoe State Park, near Sinclair, WY, is another reservoir and recreation area that offers hiking, fishing, and boating opportunities. There are sand dunes nearby, where off-road vehicles are permitted.
This undated photograph shows the Seminoe Dam and Reservoir. Visitors will agree–it looks very much the same today! Photofile: Dam-Seminoe, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
The next time you’re traveling through the state or looking to plan your next getaway, look past the usual suspects–Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks–to find some lesser-traveled roads. State parks make summer more fun!
The AHC would like to highlight one of our UFO-related collections, the R. Leo Sprinkle papers.
The “Roswell Daily Record” from July 9th, 1947, announcing the discovery of wreckage near Roswell, NM.
Ronald Leo Sprinkle was born in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 1930. Receiving his PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Missouri in 1961, he held the position of Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of North Dakota from 1961 to 1964. He then was hired at the University of Wyoming and served as Associate Professor of Guidance Education, Counselor and Assistant Professor of Psychology, Director of Counseling and Testing, Professor of Counseling Services, and Counseling Psychologist. Sprinkle’s major professional interests were counseling and hypnosis, the psychological aspects of UFO research, and parapsychology. In his career, he published extensively on UFOs, served as a consultant for several T.V. programs, and founded the Rocky Mountain Conference on UFO Investigation. He corresponded with many ufologists and abductees, including Ida Kannenberg. Sprinkle resigned in 1989 to become a professor emeritus and a counseling psychologist in private practice.
This collection contains the personal and professional correspondence of Leo Sprinkle as well as articles and manuscripts by other authors, an extensive collection of paranormal-related newsletters, Sprinkle’s own published papers, and his original research. Most materials are about UFOs and the psychology of UFO contactees. Other subjects include conventional psychology, paranormal activity, multiple personality disorder, parapsychology, reincarnation, and near-death experiences.
Regardless of how interested in the discovery of UFOs and alien life forms–whether you live and breathe according to each new extraterrestrial discovery or theory, or happened to watch The X-Files once–the Sprinkle papers have something to interest you!
Explore another scientific approach to UFO research in our Virmuze exhibit about Richard F. Haines, “The UFO Research of a NASA Scientist.” Like Leo Sprinkle, Haines brought rigorous academic credentials to unexplained aerial phenomena, compiling hundreds of UFO sightings from WWI through the 21st century while maintaining his reputation as a respected NASA research scientist for more than two decades.
Around the nation summer is a season for concert series and music festivals. Holdings at the American Heritage Center include the papers of many musicians and composers, particularly those who composed for movies and television—even for cartoons! This photograph from the Nathaniel “Nat” Finston papers shows four composers whose papers are at the American Heritage Center, plus two more composers who have correspondence in the papers of other individuals whose collections are also at the American Heritage Center.
In the photo, left to right, are, standing: David Snell, Minnaletha White, Arthur Rosenstein, Earl Brent, Bronislaw Kaper, Roger Edens, Eric Zeisl, Daniele Amfitheatrof, Sol Kaplan, Franz Waxman. Seated: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Nat Finston. Nathaniel Finston papers, #6107, Box 1, Folder 3-2Q. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
In addition to the papers of Nat Finston, other individuals whose papers are here include Snell, Kaper, and Kaplan. The Hal Schaefer and Eugene Poddany papers (both composers) at the American Heritage Center contain correspondence and scores by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (composer). The William Dozier (the creator and producer of the Batman and Green Hornet television shows, among others) papers at the American Heritage Center contain correspondence with Daniele Amfitheatrof (composer).
Greetings, readers! My name is Patrick Conraads, and I just finished my first year as a graduate student in History at the University of Wyoming. This past semester, I was enrolled in Rick Ewig’s Archival Methods class. For my term paper this semester, I wrote a paper about McCarthyism during the Cold War and Adrian Scott, who was a member of the Hollywood Ten. The Hollywood Ten were indicted on charges of communism, and Scott was jailed in Kentucky for a year because of charges of communism.
Adrian Scott, Bartley Crum, and Edward Dmytryk outside of a building in Washington, D.C. Adrian and Joan Scott Papers, Collection #3238, Box 2, Folder 21. UW American Heritage Center.
One interesting aspect of Adrian Scott’s political views is how he wanted to continue Franklin Roosevelt’s politics of the 1930s. In a speech Scott gave on March 5, 1948 he told the audience that
We must see to it that the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter are realities – and not catchwords of a dying liberal thought. We must see a forthright renewal of the attempt to establish equality for minorities. We must, in short, see to it that the progressive tradition – whether at home or abroad, in the office or in the home – must follow the architectural framework we inherited from Franklin Roosevelt.[1]
Scott intentions were not to be un-American, but to carry on with political thoughts that had been rendered obsolete by World War II.
Despite Scott trying to merely carry on with the political framework of someone who was considered an American hero years earlier, he was villainized as a communist. According to the Mundt-Nixon Bill, the key piece of legislation for McCarthyism, communism was responsible for the racial strife in America as well as the disruption of trade and commerce.[2] Many people, who could be considered as merely exercising their right to free speech, could not speak out in favor of Communism during this time period. When Karl Mundt gave a speech to Congress on May 17, 1946, he spoke directly to Americans rights. Mundt quoted a New York attorney, John W. Davis as saying
The fact that men have the right to speak or write as they please does not exempt their speech or writing from your field of inquiry. It is not criminal, for instance, for any man tor group of men to advocate the granting of patents of nobility, or the creation of a state established church, or the disenfranchisement of citizens because of creed, or the abolition of the right to private property, but it would be deeply un-American for them to do so.[3]
Mundt used Davis’ comments as guidelines for what the House Committee on Un-American Activities needed to do. Mundt told Congress “our task, top which the house assigned us, is to seek out and to expose those activities, which although legal, are none the less un-American, subversive and contrary to the American concept.”[4] Mundt’s speech made it clear that the Committee could pursue un-American activity even if it was legal.
The Adrian and Joan Scott papers contains over one hundred boxes, consisting of scripts, correspondence, speeches, and the Mundt-Nixon Bill. The collection provides insight into what Scott believed, and how his beliefs were evident in some of his films. A researcher can get a great understanding of how America feared communism when they combine this collection with the nuclear anxieties of the Cold War. This research has been fascinating, because it shows how America increased censorship in the name of security during the Cold War.
–Patrick Conraads, Archival Methods student
[1] Taken from the last page of a speech given by Adrian Scott in Folder 2, Box 1 Adrian Scott Collection, #3238, American Heritage Center, Universtiy of Wyoming. The speech is to various members of the Hollywood ten and Blacklist 19, speaking to their courage, their political beliefs, and how they are being singled out by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. This quote comes from the last page of the speech.
[2] Taken from section two of the Mundt Nixon Bill in Folder 1, Box 1, Adrian Scott Collection, #3238, American Heritage Center, Universtiy of Wyoming. The bill outlines the necessity for legislation, villainizing communism along the way. There are a total of 11 reasons given for action against communism. The overall theme is that Communism will destroy the capitalist order.
[3] Taken from page 24 of a report on Karl E. Mundt and his congressional history. Folder 1, Box 1, Adrian Scott Collection, #3238, American Heritage Center, Universtiy of Wyoming.
The American Heritage Center recently finished processing the papers of Harry C. Butcher. Butcher was a member of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s staff during World War II and wrote of his experiences in his book “My Three Years with Eisenhower.”
In addition to materials related to Butcher’s experiences during World War II, there is also correspondence with Eisenhower during his presidency, personal correspondence to Butcher’s family and a great deal of material chronicling Butcher’s career in the broadcast industry, both radio and television, before and after World War II. Some of these materials illustrate a time when the US government was determining the best way to regulate radio and television broadcasting and these are issues Butcher worked with in his role as a radio and television station owner.
A great deal of the materials in this collection are from the 1950s, a time that the United States was engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Cold War manifests itself in the Butcher papers in interesting ways, but perhaps the most interesting way is in correspondence between Butcher and one of his acquaintances decrying the fluoridation of the water in Santa Barbara, California, where Butcher lived.
Take a look at these letters for yourself:
Letter from the Harry C. Butcher papers, Box 2, Folder 7.
Letter from the Harry C. Butcher papers, Box 2, Folder 7.
Letter from the Harry C. Butcher papers, Box 2, Folder 7.
Letter from the Harry C. Butcher papers, Box 2, Folder 7.
A conspiracy theory at the time had it that the fluoridation of American water was a communist plot that would turn Americans into mindless communists. This is a reflection of the Cold War paranoia that gripped American society at the time. Other examples of manifestations of this paranoia include the Hollywood blacklisting and other activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the mid-1950s.
An example of this paranoia in popular culture can be found in Stanley Kubrick’s satirical film “Dr. Stangelove,” which is centered around a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union put into motion by an American general fearful of communist infiltration by means of the fluoridation of American water.
Butcher, much to his credit, replies that God must want the water in Santa Barbara to be fluoridated because it is naturally present and states, somewhat sardonically, “I sincerely hope you succeed in saving the world.”
[Editor’s note: The AHC invited UW students enrolled in Professor Rick Ewig’s Archival Methods course to contribute a post for the AHC blog. Here is one such entry! Enjoy!]
One of the most underused collections at the American Heritage Center has a gold mine of information (some on an actual gold mine) spread across dozens of boxes and hundreds of folders. Titans of industry in the waning Gilded Age are highlighted in correspondence and business contracts, deeds, and minutes. Such men could be staying at a swanky hotel in our nation’s capital while sending and receiving letters from venture capitalists in London, cattle foremen in New Mexico, estate lawyers in Iowa, and desperate hucksters, inventors, and panhandlers from areas in between. Such was the lot of James and Helen Bosler of Carlisle Pennsylvania, and their heir apparent, Frank Bosler.
Frank Bosler, along with a few other notables such as Edward Ivinson, would become the closest thing Wyoming had to a Rockefeller or a J.P. Morgan. A level-headed businessman who made decisions by the numbers rather than by personal feelings, ran what amounted to a minor business empire that comprised large tracts of Southeast Wyoming, land and cattle in Iowa and New Mexico, and mine deeds in Colorado. His holdings included a dizzying array of companies that included the Iron Mountain Ranch, the Iron Mountain Alloy Company, and the Ashland Mining Company. Frank Bosler could be found sending letters and contracts that exchanged tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and later, he could send a letter to his bank enquiring about a discrepancy of one dollar and seventy-two cents, making him meticulous, miserly, or both.
Photograph of John Coble. Photofile: Coble, John. UW American Heritage Center.
Juxtaposed with this gentleman from back East, a tenderfoot some might have called him in his younger years, was the rough and tumble John C. Coble. Coble was the owner of the world famous bucking bronco Steamboat, the horse immortalized as Wyoming’s unofficial symbol. Coble, an undisputed leader of cowpokes and survivor of a grisly knife attack by the father of the boy allegedly murdered by Tom Horn, was Bosler’s business partner and primary operator of the Iron Mountain Company. Bosler, cultured and unemotional, and Coble, hardened cowboy and hothead, made for quite the odd couple. It is no wonder that their business partnership dissolved with Coble allegedly misallocating company funds in order to pay for Horn’s defense, Horn being a close, personal friend. Coble eventually won a civil case Bosler that went all the way to the Wyoming Supreme Court, which held that Bosler owed Coble over twenty thousand dollars in damages!
All these events represent a fraction of the interactions found in the Bosler Family Papers that bring to life the changing Wyoming landscape at the turn of the last century. Dig in, and enjoy this precious stone at the AHC in the Gem City of the Plains.
–Oscar Lilley, HIST 4055 Student
[Author’s note regarding sources consulted: Bosler Family Papers, 1864-1930. Collection Number 5850. American Heritage Center. University of Wyoming. Boxes 61-63, and 115 were highlighted in this blog post.]
Have you ever wanted to relive a special moment in Cowboy or Cowgirl sports history? Such as the 1988 football game of UW vs. Air Force, when UW came back and won? Or perhaps the 2007 NIT championship game of the Cowgirls vs. Wisconsin? If your answer is yes, then you’ll be pleased to know that an online inventory of all game films and documents in the Intercollegiate Athletics collection is now available.
Not a sports fan? You still may find some items of interest, such as this 1977 football season highlight video showing the campus and students:
Getting the Ball Rolling to Improve Access
Previously, accessing the UW Intercollegiate Athletics material was like catching a Hail Mary in a Wyoming blizzard–very difficult! All that existed was a 35-page paper inventory created by a student in 2002 for 228 boxes of film. Neither the collection nor inventory was organized in any way. Although the inventory was originally created electronically in Microsoft Word, the electronic version was not readily available and paper copies were used for search and retrieval. It’s not the 1980s. We live in a world where keyword searches and 24/7 access of information is the norm. It was time to bring the Intercollegiate Athletics collection to the 21st century.
Old inventory for the UW Athletics Collection.
The bulky inventory was not available to patrons but rather used by AHC archivists when a patron requested a film. Because there are approximately 25 requests a year for films and other materials, our A/V archivist used it often and had it practically memorized. While this is one way to find what you’re looking for in an unorganized collection, those unfamiliar with the collections’ contents would have to scan dozens of pages to find what they needed, and there was no guarantee that we even had what they were looking for (more on this later).
The Intercollegiate Athletics collection totals over 200 cubic feet. If you laid each box from end to end it would span the entire War Memorial football field, plus another thirty yards. Not only was it a large, unorganized collection, but there were inaccuracies in the titles and dates, and many of the films were unidentified. Needless to say, organizing and identifying the thousands of films and other materials was a lot of work.
New and Improved: The Collection
The new, accurate online inventory (a.k.a. finding aid) can be found here. The collection is divided into three series: films, sports records, and athletic director’s email. Most films are organized by sport, and then chronologically. There are various types of films and videos including 16 millimeter reel-to-reel tape, Beta, VHS and even DVDs. The new finding aid identifies each film and video by type.
The UW Intercollegiate Athletics collection is mostly comprised of game films, and most are of UW football and men’s basketball games. There is a fairly complete run of football games dating from 1938 to 2004 and a fairly complete run of men’s basketball games dating from 1978-2003. The BYU vs. Wyoming game of the October 1981 blizzard, when the Cowboys came back from a 14-point deficit to beat Jim McMahon and the Cougars; the 1987 men’s basketball team’s run in the NCAA tournament, when the cowboys were led by Fennis Dembo and Eric Leckner; and the March 2, 2002 game against Utah to win the regular season Mountain West Conference title and host the biggest crowd to see a game in the UW Arena are just some of the historical highlights included this collection.
Game films of women’s basketball are also included with a fairly complete run from 2003 to 2008. The collection also includes films documenting baseball, cross country, golf, skiing, hockey, rodeo, soccer, swimming/diving, tennis, track, and volleyball from the 1980s-2000s. Wrestling is also represented and there is footage dating back to 1949. Additionally, it includes films of coaches’ shows, senior banquets, and season highlight tapes.
The collection also contains physical and electronic records about UW sports, such as several scrapbooks of newspaper clippings dating 1920-1948 about UW football and basketball. A small portion of football and men’s basketball schedules, game brochures, and narrator information sheets for games are in this collection. There are also audio cassette tapes of interviews with coaches and players.
2006-2007 University of Wyoming Cowgirl basketball team. University of Wyoming Intercollegiate Athletics Records, Collection No. 515001.
Why Does the AHC Have This Stuff?
The American Heritage Center houses the university’s archives- permanent records documenting university history. Sports are a fundamental part of most universities, and the University of Wyoming is no exception. In fact, it could be argued that, because Wyoming has no professional NFL or NBA teams, the Wyoming Cowboys are even more essential to document.
Unfortunately, acquisition of game tapes and records has been inconsistent and unstructured. We are very fortunate to have what we have, and hope to acquire both films and records documenting games and the administration for years to come. Like most sporting events, it just takes teamwork and a game plan!
Score Sports Memories and Memorabilia for Yourself
Whether you want to reminisce with friends over a favorite Cowboys memory or see what the fashions of the 1970s were, the Intercollegiate Athletics Collection is a slam dunk for interesting (and sometimes amusing) content. Contact our friendly reference archivists for more information on how to access and even get copies of specific films and other materials. In the meantime, here’s a major moment in Cowboys’ basketball history that, although young Cowboys fans may not have known of it, will forever be remembered within the UW Archives:
~ John Waggener, University of Wyoming Archivist and Historian, and Aaron Kruger and friends, UW Cowboy fans
Frederick A. Gutheim, circa 1930. Frederick Albert Gutheim papers, #7470, Box G142, Folder 25. UW American Heritage Center.
Frederick Gutheim was born on March 3, 1908, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended Sidwell Friends School and later Dr. Devitt’s Preparatory School. He earned a degree from the Experimental College of the University of Wisconsin in 1931 and pursued graduate study at the University of Chicago. His early association with mentors like John Gaus and Lewis Mumford lead him to the study of urban and regional planning. Gutheim pursued this interest as a bureaucrat, a writer and academic, a practitioner, and as an activist. The American Heritage Center is pleased to announce that the Frederick Albert Gutheim papers have been recently processed and a new online inventory is available.
Gutheim became professionally acquainted with housing and planning policy while a staff member at the Brookings Institution. Between 1933 and 1947, he worked for federal agencies involved with housing and planning, serving the U.S. Army in the National Housing Agency during World War II. During this period, he also married Mary “Polly” Purdon, in 1935. He worked closely with Catherine Bauer at the U.S. Housing Authority as the assistant director of the Division of Research and Information. In 1933, he wrote portions of the TVA Act concerning planning.
Sketch on a postcard, Frederick Albert Gutheim papers, #07470, Box G142, Folder 25. UW American Heritage Center.
Gutheim may be best known as a writer and a teacher. He was a staff writer on architecture and planning for the New York Herald Tribune between 1947 and 1949. He published The Potomac in 1949, a classic example of regionally-focused environmental history. Over the course of his career, Gutheim wrote and edited for numerous magazines and journals including the Magazine of Art and the journal of the American Institute of Architects. He founded the Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies as well as the historic preservation program at George Washington University. He advised and taught at the university from 1975, when he established the program, up to the time of his death.
Gutheim, circa 1962, with a ‘portable’ bicycle. Box G142, Folder 27,
Gutheim used his knowledge of bureaucracy and his academic prowess in a series of private consulting businesses, among them Galaxy, Inc., and Gutheim, Seelig, Erickson. Under the auspices of these firms, he advised organizations like the United Nations, the Canadian government, and the city of Newport, Rhode Island.
As an activist, Gutheim sought to protect the integrity of the landscape surrounding his home in Montgomery County, Maryland. In 1974, he established Sugarloaf Regional Trails, a non-profit organization dedicated to historic preservation and land conservation. He served as a trustee of the Accokeek foundation and was instrumental in the opening of the National Colonial Farm, which was active in preserving native agricultural practices. He served on an array of historic preservation and planning boards from 1950 until his death in 1993. Gutheim perceived himself to be a catalyst for change, whose work in the background made the more apparent success of others possible.
“Git ’em up, podner!” Photo included in William Boyd scrapbook, Box 173, William Boyd Papers, #8038. UW American Heritage Center.
One the most popular collections at the American Heritage Center is the papers of William Boyd, who played cowboy Hopalong Cassidy for many years on radio, television, and film. Hopalong Cassidy was originally created by author Clarence E. Mulford in 1904 in a series of short stories and novels. William Boyd first brought Hoppy to life in a 1934 film adaptation of Mulford’s story. He portrayed Hoppy in many more films, on a television series beginning in 1949, and voiced Hoppy in a radio show. The character became enormously popular and Boyd acquired all rights to the Hopalong character in 1948. He consolidated all Hopalong enterprises and began a highly profitable business through promotion of the character. Boyd donated some of his profits to children’s hospitals and homes. Boyd married actress Grace Bradley in 1937. He retired in 1953, and died in 1972.
Hopalong Cassidy with children in Hoppy costumes and his horse, Topper. Photo File: Boyd, William L, UW American Heritage Center.
The William Boyd collection contains a wide variety of materials; everyone is sure to find something in the collection that would pique their interest. The collection has materials concerning Boyd’s portrayal of Hopalong Cassidy and his many related promotional and business ventures. It contains correspondence, legal files, financial files, newspaper clippings, promotional and publicity materials, and other business records. In the collection, you can also find Hopalong Cassidy scripts and comics, sheet music, phonograph records, and photographs of William Boyd. There are also a large number of artifacts, including Hopalong Cassidy costume items, toys, and other merchandise. A small amount of William Boyd’s personal files are also present.
Example of a Hoppy Birthday card, Box 112, Folder – “Birthday cards, undated.” William Boyd Papers, #8038. UW American Heritage Center.
Hopalong Cassidy on parade, Box 199, Negative Number 27916. William Boyd Papers, #8038. UW American Heritage Center.
Due to Hopalong Cassidy’s immense popularity, he had merchandising and tie-in deals with a wide range of brands and products. Interestingly, three products he most heavily seemed to promote were bread, tuna, and dairy products (especially ice cream). This is due, in part, to his popularity with children. Of course little Timmy wants his sandwiches to be made with Hoppy’s favorite bread and tuna! Not only does the collection contain correspondence and other business files pertaining to his merchandising and promotional deals, but you can also find examples of the original packaging used for various products. Hopalong Cassidy games, toys, and children’s cowboy clothes (sanctioned by Hopalong Cassidy, of course!) are also contained in the collection.
Hoppy’s branding efforts even reached Chicken of the Sea! Box 113, Folder – “Packaging with Hopalong Cassidy, undated.” Tuna label has a date of 1952 stamped on the back. William Boyd Papers, #8038. UW American Heritage Center.
There are numerous scripts in the collection for his radio, television, and film productions, as well as contracts and copyright agreements for the stories. In the 1950s, a Hopalong Cassidy comic strip was produced by King Features Syndicate. The collection contains a nearly complete run of these comics, which are a blast to read though. Would you like to see Hopalong Cassidy’s saddle, boots, hats, and other apparel? The collection has these, too! How about his holster and six-shooters? Yep, these can also be found at the AHC! Do you want to learn how to play all the old Hopalong Cassidy songs? Well, we’ve got the sheet music just for you! Did you write a fan letter to Hoppy as a child? Maybe you can find it in the fan mail folder!
One of the strips distributed by King Features Syndicate. Box 156, Folder – “Knockout Comics – entire magazine, 1957-1959.” William Boyd Papers, #8038. UW American Heritage Center.
There are also a large number of scrapbooks filled with newspaper and magazine clippings detailing William Boyd’s activities as Hopalong Cassidy, as well as a large number of photographs. The photographs include movie stills from his various productions, publicity photographs of William Boyd at various events, and a number of photographs with him and his wife, Grace Bradley Boyd. Whether you’re looking to do serious research or just experience a blast from the past by looking at old toys, games, and original Hoppy apparel, this collection has it all.
Learn more in the AHC virtual exhibit, “William Boyd’s Extensive Merchandising of Hopalong Cassidy.”
Letter from Mulford to Boyd discussing film options for a story by Mulford. Box 150, folder – “Correspondence – letter (copy) from Clarence E. Mulford to Boyd re: making Hopalong Cassidy film, 1948.” William Boyd Papers, #8038. UW American Heritage Center.
I’ve been beginning blog posts recently by writing about this or that gem that I found in the Forrest J. Ackerman Collection. After watching enough movies and looking through the artifacts that are in the collection I’m starting to realize that there is very little in the collection that isn’t a “gem.”
Dear Reader, I submit for your approval (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase!) . . . Cat Women of the Moon. Cat Women of the Moon is a bizarre spectacle. Like so many films of its time, it shows a nefarious feminine presence, resolved through good, ole-fashioned, masculine wherewithal in which the day is saved through a sort of proper gender performance.
One of the posters for the release of the film. Forrest J. Ackerman papers, Box 140. UW American Heritage Center.
In the film a group of astronauts travel to the moon. The crew is comprised of men except for the female navigator, Helen, who has been compromised by a mysterious, telepathic force. When the crew arrives on the moon, they are greeted by a barren landscape that is devoid of life (the hostile environment is expressed by one crew member’s cigarette that spontaneously combusts, obviously because fire in space is both scary and possible). The crew is led to a cave by Helen, where they are taken captive by a seductive race of cat women (what? why? really?). One crew member is easily killed by the cat women, who use his sexually aggressive nature against him. Another member of the crew is easily seduced and controlled by his misguided trust of women.
Photograph from production of the film. Forrest J. Ackerman papers, Box 105, Folder 108. UW American Heritage Center.
The wariest and most alert crew member soon learns that the cat women want to take over the earth, in the process destroying all men. Their method: guide a woman to become the navigator of man’s mission to the moon (it is assumed that she would not have been as capable as a man in this endeavor), to steal the ship, and then to take over earth. Simple enough. Yet simply averted by the surviving crew member’s ability to take emotional and mental control over one of the cat women, hence thwarting the end of the earth.
Cat Women of the Moon is a wonderful film because it’s so transparent. The parts are ably cast (although at a certain point actresses started realizing they were only being cast as villains or heroines) and the sets are imaginative. The spaceship reminds me of the spaceships my sister and I would create when growing up (because you really can make a spaceship out of anything when you imagine it, and I’m not being ironic). The interior walls of the ship are made out of corrugated tin and the seats of the spaceship look like they came from a movie studio’s accounting department (imagine frustrated accountants trying to stand while doing their work, telling themselves that they possibly couldn’t be paid enough for this work).
But authenticity wasn’t the point. When the idea of space travel was still so fantastic, people would have willingly paid to watch a movie featuring strong-jawed space cowboys traveling to the stars in a cardboard box.
Perhaps it’s a good idea then, to sit back and enjoy Cat Women of the Moon as a film of its time. Because all of it seems so fantastic and ludicrous that it really just is a fun film to watch. And that’s what is so great about the gems of the Forrest Ackerman collection, because they reflect on an era that was deeply troubled as well as fun, which is a perfect combination for academic investigation.
