UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1416
ECHTNER, THOMAS

ECHTNER, Thomas (1932-)
Professor Emeritus of Outreach and Continuing Education
At UW: [as student] 1956-1962; [as professor] 1963-1990

Interviewed: 	March 23, 2015
Interviewer: 	Harv Thompson, Maryo Gard Ewell, Anne Pryor
Index by: 	Stephen A. Pierce
Length: 	2 hours, 24 minutes

Abstract: In his March 2015 interview with Harv Thompson et al, Thomas Echtner recounts his experiences coming to the University of Wisconsin-Extension after the Korean War and his work with Extension’s arts outreach, especially in Milwaukee.  He details the influences that led him to a college education, to the University of Wisconsin, and to art. He also discussed how he moved from being an extension outreach agent in Wausau to working with Jim Schwalbach on the rural art program.  Throughout, he relates his memories of major figures in UW-Extension, like Schwalbach, Robert Gard, and Harv Thompson. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Oral History Program.

Key Words: Green Bay WI; art; Korea; UW-Extension; University of Wisconsin-Madison; Frederick Logan; GI Bill; James Schwalbach; Let’s Draw; Wisconsin Arts & Crafts Association (WACA); Rural Art Association; James Schinneller; UW-Milwaukee.

First Interview Session (March 23, 2015): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:01:20	Question [HT]: Talk about your early years. Answer: Echtner was born in Green Bay WI in 1932. He mused about growing up in Green Bay, sneaking into Packers gams, and summer being “my time” to play with his friends in the outdoors, playing in the lagoons on the bay side of town, with neighbors’ animals, building tree houses, etc.

00:07:01	[no question] He talked about beginning school, at which he wasn’t very good (unlike his sister). He and his sister went to a Catholic school, the Cathedral Grade School, and with demanding, rough teachers, he struggled.

00:09:51	[no question] He related moving on to HS at Central Catholic, run by male priests rather than female nuns.  This situation was much better for him, so he enjoyed HS and did well there. 

00:11:53	[no question] Noting that there was no art teaching at Central, he reflected on why he got interested in art—as far back as elementary school, he was the “kid who could draw.” Follow up [ME]:  Were you exposed to Schwalbach’s Let’s Draw on public radio? Answer: Not as a kid. In comparison, he continued, his wife’s HS in Madison had a number of art teachers.

00:15:43	[no question] He related some details about his parents—his father was a local businessman selling floor coverings who was a bit of a drinker (which kept the business from being more successful). He talked about the reasons that the business declined, especially from competition from local department stores. When the business finally closed, his father got a job at the department store, H. C. Prange’s, but couldn’t control his drinking and was subsequently fired.

00:23:36	[no question] Continuing to talk about how he got interested in art, he related that through his schooling, he never considered it, initially getting public service jobs out of high school and assuming he’d just work like his father. But when some friends went to college, he (not having money for school) volunteered for the draft (in 1953).

00:26:45	[no question] Deployed to Korea just after the end of the Korean War, he remembered the refugees streaming from the north, being assigned to the military police, and how being in Korea was one of the more positive experience of his life, since it showed him how people as poor as the Koreans could still be happy. It also gave him pause to question whether US intervention always has the desired positive consequences, giving the example of how military intervention caused an uptick in prostitution.

00:33:47	[no question] After Korea, he continued, he began thinking about school, with the advantage of the GI Bill.  He first attended St. Norbert’s College outside of De Pere WI. This gave him some college experience, but he didn’t finish his degree there and got some jobs after this doing sign painting.

00:36:49	[no question] After his year at St. Norbert’s, and after taking some courses at the UW-Extension center in Green Bay in 1955, he decided to come to UW-Madison to take advantage of the GI Bill in 1956. But even at this point, he was unaware of the art school and wasn’t pursuing art.  

00:40:03	[no question] Despite living in the dorm with a friend from Green Bay who wasn’t a positive influence on him, he met in the dorm an older student who acted as a mentor for younger students and (an art student himself) suggested that he try studying art. He tried this and took a number of classes with Fred Logan, who directed him to art education. He related how his grades began to improve (he graduated in 1959 with honors) and “the world looked very bright.”

00:46:27	Question [AP]: Was it an issue for you that you were older than many classmates? Answer: No; he didn’t think so; in the art school there were older students. He did recall being amazed at how young some of his colleagues were.

00:48:09	Question [HT]: Did you move right into a masters? Answer: Yes; in 1960/61, he completed an MS in sculpture and art metal, because he did well in these fields. Then he went on to take the MFA (the art equivalent to a PhD), which he got in 1962.

00:50:44	Question [HT]: Were you thinking of teaching at this point? Answer: At that point he said he realized that teaching was the direction he had to go.  In the art education program he’d done practice teaching; then during the MS and MFA he also taught.

00:52:58	[no question] He recalled coming into contact with UW-Extension’s art education component during his undergraduate and graduate education. He especially recalled a guest lecture with Jim Schwalbach, who familiarized students with Let’s Draw. During his grad school days, then, he worked with Schwalbach, who had him judge school children’s art and go to rural art shows to judge.

00:58:06	Question [ME]: Did you know of Aaron Bohrod? Answer: Yes; he’d met Bohrod in his undergraduate days, recalled he was a very nice man but not “approved of” by students in the department because he was too precise.

00:59:51	Question [HT]: Did you get involved with Extension once you got the MFA? Answer: He remembered that the first year out, he was contemplating a job at a 2-year campus at Wausau or the state teacher’s college at Oshkosh. His choice of the former was “fortuitous,” and he discussed what he taught there.

01:02:56	[no question] Toward the end of 1960, Jim Schwalbach approached him to work on a project on the home craft industry together, which Schwalbach had been working on in Scandinavia during that year. Figuring he wouldn’t get this chance again, he agreed to work with Schwalbach and leave Wausau.  To his surprise, however, when Schwalbach returned, though he had some contacts in northern WI, he essentially turned the entire project over to Echtner.

01:10:03	[no question] He explained how he proceeded with the home craft industry project, first contacting county agents through Extension. While he ran into many dead ends, he also had some success. He related an embarrassing story about one craft artist who took offense that Echtner wasn’t enthusiastic about his work and bad-mouthed him to Schwalbach.

01:13:49	Question [HT]: How long were you in this position? Answer: He talked about working on the craft arts project until 1965, on the tenure track and in the end requested to work mostly from Milwaukee. He discussed the progress of this project, products he designed, how he ended up marketing the products, and questions the administration had about the legality of it.

01:22:03	Question [HT]: Change in 1972? Answer: He explained that Schwalbach remained the primary project leader, but he began working with Jim Schinneller. He talked about Schinneller’s background and work in Milwaukee.

01:26:38	Question [HT]: 1972? Answer: In 1972, their products were selling nationally and internationally, but he realized he couldn’t run it forever. But spinning it off to someone with both business savvy and artistic talent wasn’t easy.  He reiterated the difference between Scandinavian and American craft art in this respect.  In the end, without finding the right person, the project ended.

01:33:31	Question [HT]: Restructuring? Answer: Part of his continuing responsibilities in the 1960s and 70s was to attend to Schwalbach’s “rural art” program, which was based out of downtown Milwaukee. Non-credit classes they began to run in association with this were the beginning of their non-credit class program. 

01:37:55	[no question] Additionally, they took over a dance program started by member of UW-Milwaukee’s faculty. This program was extremely successful, and prompted them to bring on an administrator for the program from UW-Milwaukee who had a dance background.

01:41:29	[no question] He listed a number of other additional classes they started—photography, drawing, painting—and as these classes increased they began using UW-Milwaukee’s facilities in the evening hours.

01:43:05	[no question] He talked about some programs he had with him at the interview—for WACA, the Rural Art Association, the WI state fair art exhibit (both professional and amateur), the high school art workshop in Wausau, the IrishFest workshop at UW-Milwaukee, the children’s theater group, and the folk music center. These programs demonstrated the breadth of the work of Extension during this period.

01:51:59	[no question] In 1982, the arts division followed the general trend of tying particular Extension programs with specific UW campuses.  At that point, Echtner and Schin-neller were invited by the dean of fine arts (Corrigan) to house their programs at UW-Milwaukee. He explained the pros and cons of this move—UW-M was a nice setting, brought a formally-trained arts administrator on board (Joan Loundsberry), and saw the programs expand and mature.

01:57:00	[no question] Continuing to talk about being housed at UW-M, he suggested that the downside of being part of a particular campus was that their programs conflicted with a long-standing, well-developed theatre program with a very different focus—so as long as the chair of the theater department remained there, she wouldn’t allow Echtner and Schneller to program children’s theater, etc.

02:00:04	Question [HT]: Shift to UW-M’s faculty? Answer: No; he said they always stayed on UW-Extension’s payroll, though they were very active at Milwaukee. He at one point even acted as assistant to the dean, but mostly as a PR move.

02:02:36	Question [HT]: Did you and Schneller retire at the same time? Answer: No; Schinnel-ler was having some health problems and so retired before Echtner. Echtner was replaced by a professor from the East Coast, which led Echtner to reflect on the changes this individual brought to their programs.

02:05:51	Question [HT]: What was your experience with Gard? Answer: Beginning when the entire Extension unit was merged, Gard became one of the important leaders, partly because Gard thought carefully through some of the difficult professional issues they had in Milwaukee, including Schinneller’s illness. He regretted not having been able to do some programming with Gard.

02:10:32	Question [HT]: Why retire when you did? Answer: While he wished this weren’t the case, and that he could have continued for another 5 years, he admitted “I just wore out.” Part of this was the political dynamics of UW-Extension, which felt like “war” at times.

02:14:30	[no question] Echnter identified the move to UW-Milwaukee as one of the moments when the politics of his job increased exponentially—especially working with the egos that existed in the art department.

02:20:07	Question [HT]: Any closing comments? Answer: He suggested that Extension programs are a great and satisfying career choice.  For him, it was even better than teaching in a classroom.

02:23:50	End of First Interview Session

End of Oral History #1416