UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #395
THEODORE M. SPERRY

SPERRY, Theodore M.  (1907-95)
Ecologist; Supervisor of Arboretum Development
At UW: 1935-41

First Interview
Interviewed: 1981	
Series: Arboretum History
Interviewer: William R. Jordan, III
Indexed (time code) by: Elaine Ayers
Length: 1 hour

CCC experience at Camp Madison; Development of prairie; Role of CCC in Arboretum development; Personalities, including G. William Longenecker, Aldo Leopold and John Curtis; Burning experiments; CCC reunion.

Second Interview
Luncheon Talk at McKay Center
Given: 1982	
Series: Arboretum History
Length: 0.5 hours

Early development of Arboretum by CCC; His background; Philosophy of Depression era in relation to CCC; Others involved in development of prairie, including Aldo Leopold, G. William Longenecker, John Curtis and Joseph Jackson.

Third Interview1
Interviewed: 1990			     
Interviewer: William R. Jordan, III
Length: 3 hours

Education; Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC); Aldo Leopold; Camp Madison; 
Prairie project; Work and workers on the prairie; Plant species; Second World
War; Consulting work in the Belgian Congo; Teaching; Curtis Prairie. 

FIRST INTERVIEW (1981): Tape 1

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:01 	Technical discussion between interviewer and interviewee. 

00:00:35	Bill Jordan with Arboretum since 1977.  Thinking of CCC reunion.

00:01:23	Ted Sperry completed doctorate work at University of Illinois under Prof. Vestal, ecologist.  TS originally from Indiana.  Root system of prairie plants was his doctorate thesis.

00:02:52	Weaver and Clements influence on TS.

00:03:24	Longenecker and Leopold came upon TS`s paper, invited him to work with them in Madison in 1935.  TS left Forest Service in Illinois where he was previously employed.  He came to supervise prairie plants in Madison.

00:06:00	Work on forest establishment.

00:06:47	Longenecker (landscape architecture) and Leopold (management) were principle scientist who TS worked under. 

00:07:42	Original condition of field was corn fields. TS enthusiastic about project.  Prairies were scarce, no existing restoration techniques, TS the first to develop them; was Leopold's idea.

00:08:51	How got started.

00:10:40	Crew--CCC boys--most didn't have high school degrees, followed technical foreman's (TS) directions.

00:11:39	How to approach problem.

00:12:12	Curtis Prairie site condition.

00:13:38	Ivan Boyd from Iowa did work on seeding in plowed fields. 

00:14:05	No other prairie restoration that TS knew about, except Ivan Boyd. 

00:17:03	Familiarity with plants; TS tried many that didn't succeed. 

00:18:16	Preparation of ground, use of spades. Plant seeds from April to November.  5-25 man crew.  Much guess work as to what to do as they went along.

00:19:06	Planting schedule.

00:23:44	Burning experiments idea of John Curtis--who took over management when TS left.  Curtis proved burning was acceptable, even beneficial, which went against criticism of many.

00:28:44	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:28:47	Work in other plant communities; Hewn.  Planting in winter near Noye Woods, now Leopold Pines.

00:31:18	Goal to recreate natural occurring prairie; no goals in terms of abundance or distribution.

00:33:03	TS in on planting maples by Lake Wingra in oak forests NE of Camp Wood.

00:34:40	Involved in pine plantings; trees came from nurseries.

00:35:41	TS interest in birds too; Bill Feeney, ecologist, interested in wildlife.

00:37:33	TS lived in CCC camp while working on project.

00:38:39	Salary w/Ph.D. in Forest Service in Illinois: $72.50/mo; in Madison: 104/mo.

00:39:24	Leopold easy to get along with, nice guy, hard worker.

00:40:31	Address in Pittsburgh, Kansas; Born in 1907.

00:45:50	End of interview.

SECOND INTERVIEW (1982): Tape 2

Tape 2/Side 1

00:00:01	Introduction

00:00:14	Curtis Prairie had random pattern of plantings.

00:00:55	Roosevelt was impetus of conservation program; he wanted to create jobs and also get something out of workers.

00:02:20	Need to retain/maintain land for useful purposes--idea behind Conservation Movement.

00:03:30	Longenecker and Leopold propose to grow trees as they grow naturally.

00:04:46	Ted Sperry invited by Leopold to work on prairie because he wrote thesis on prairie plants. Initial work. 

00:08:21	Weather and plants. First planting was a flop due to hot and dry weather.

00:12:07	Planted in a scattered manner to cover as much area as possible; had no plan.  Got stipa to grow.

00:15:17	TS worked on program from '36 to '41 (when he got called away to army).

00:17:29	Conflicts between Leopold and Jackson. Birding. 

00:19:55	Experiments with fire.  

00:23:36	TS worked in the Congo in `52.

00:23:55	Gradual disappearance of bog area.

00:25:44	Evidence that prairie was former condition of the land.

00:28:05	End of interview.

THIRD INTERVIEW (September 13, 1990): Tapes 3-5
The third interview is derived from tapes in the Arboretum Collection: AC 109, AC 110, and AC 111.

Tape 3/Side 1

Side 1 contains a field interview with Theodore Sperry while walking on Curtis Prairie.

Tape 3/Side 2

00:34:00	William Jordan begins an interview with Theodore Sperry on September 13, 1990.

00:34:28	TS talks about a notebook he kept.

00:35:50	TS talks about his education in the Indianapolis suburbs.  

00:39:10	At Butler University, TS became interested in botany.  He applied to graduate school at Wisconsin and Illinois, and attended Illinois.  He wrote his thesis on root systems of prairie plants.

00:41:32	He describes how he arrived at this thesis topic.

00:44:13	He talks about the Civilian Conservation Corps and his work for the Forest Service the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois.  He was a foreman in the camp doing a forest survey.

00:45:41	He submitted his doctoral thesis to the Journal of Ecology in 1935.

00:46:18	At that time, Aldo Leopold was looking for a prairie ecologist.  Leopold wrote to TS asking him to come to Wisconsin.

00:48:42	TS met his wife in the botany department at Illinois.  She taught in Decatur while he worked for the Forest Service.  They married in Urbana.

00:51:22	Leopold officially offered TS a job in February 1936.

00:52:01	He recalls arriving at Camp Madison.

00:56:32	Longenecker and Leopold interviewed TS.

00:57:22	They brought in TS to manage the prairie project.

00:59:24	Longenecker liked the idea of developing a prairie to go in front of the forest to create a nice view.  Leopold was more interest in the vegetation for game.  They simply instructed him to use the CCC workers to build a prairie.

01:01:26	TS looked for some prairie to transplant and found some savanna-type prairie along the Wisconsin River.

01:03:38	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 4/Side 1 

00:00:01	Theodore Sperry describes transplanting prairie.

00:02:41	TS employed laborers from the CCC.

00:03:51	He talks about the work environment.

00:06:28	TS was unsure whether he could get the transplanted species to grow, especially because of a spell of dry weather.

00:07:33	A watering brigade worked day and night to take water out of the lake and drive it to the prairie.

00:12:58	TS describes planting patterns on the prairie.  After a harsh winter, very few plants returned in the spring.

00:14:58	The work crew ranged from seven to fifteen people.  Longenecker assigned men from the camp to different crews.  Each crew had a crew foreman, who was not a CCC employee but rather employees of the National Park Service.

00:16:44	TS describes some of the species he planted and their distribution in the prairie.

00:22:07	He talks about seed planting and single-species plots.

00:23:52	He talks about planting sod and grass.

00:27:47	TS had to live apart from his wife, Gladys Gallagher, who was teaching in Decatur.  She came to Madison in the summer.  He describes his wife and her teaching career.

00:31:36	End of side.

Tape 4/Side 2

00:31:38	Theodore Sperry put up with life at Camp Madison.

00:33:07	He relates a story about a bulldozer.

00:36:05	He talks about the building burning down.

00:37:10	He was called up to active duty in 1941.

00:38:31	The prairie looked “pretty sad” after the first planting.  TS goes on to describe his numbering system for planted species.	

00:40:42	Weed growth on the prairie troubled him little.

00:41:35	For three or four years there was insufficient grass coverage for burning.  He knew that prairie pastures had been improved by burning and he therefore experimented with burning on the prairie, despite opposition, in 1940.  The burned strips yielded better growth than the unburned strips.

00:47:56	TS talks about John Curtis, who conducted similar fire experiments after the Second World War.

00:50:35	TS describes the significance of these experiments for conservation.

00:51:44	Aldo Leopold was the only person who had scientific interest in reestablishing prairie.  Longenecker simply went along with whatever Leopold suggested.  Leopold supervised TS but never worked alongside him.

00:53:40	TS talks about his army training in Texas. 

00:56:13	When war broke out, TS joined the air force and went to school for meteorology in Rantoul, Illinois.  Eventually he instructed courses.  

01:01:54	He applied to be a weather forecaster and studied in Miami, Florida.  He received his commission from the Officers Training Corps in Oxford, Mississippi, before being stationed in England from 1943 to 1945.  

01:03:40	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 5/Side 1

00:00:01	Theodore Sperry continues to discuss his service in England during the Second World War.

00:00:54	The Arboretum had survived the war years only as a “paper organization.”

00:01:49	TS returned to Madison in 1946 to survey the plots he had planted.  

00:02:43	Later that year, he got a job teaching classes in Pittsburgh, Kansas.

00:04:05	In 1951, TS was sent to the Belgian Congo as an agricultural consultant to survey the prairie land.

00:08:02	Upon his return a year later, he and his wife finally lived together in Kansas.  TS taught seventeen different courses.

00:09:52	He didn’t conduct any more conservation work in Kansas.

00:11:20	Jordan and TS discuss some old photographs.

00:14:58	Jordan and TS walk outside; TS describes where some of the features of Camp Madison had been located.  

00:18:11	TS stayed in the barracks while in Madison.  In the summers he and his wife lived in a cottage on Lake Monona.
	
00:20:21	TS describes the old barracks.

00:22:56	He talks about his tool shed and the paths workers took across the prairie.

00:24:21	TS typically had six to eight workers on his crew.  He confesses that he didn’t have a good rapport with his crew.  His nickname was “Little Owl.”
	
00:28:36	TS looks out over Curtis Prairie; he notices that the original plants have been overtaken by other prairie vegetation.

00:30:19	He comments on the roar of traffic from the Beltline; he thinks the noise has not bothered the birds who inhabit the prairie.

00:31:31	End of side.

Tape 5/Side 2

00:31:33	Theodore Sperry and Bill Jordan continue to survey Curtis Prairie.  TS compares his original planting boundaries with the current features of the prairie.

00:38:02	There were few visitors to the prairie when he worked there.

00:39:36	TS talks about SER [?] and Grassland conferences.

00:41:32	Increases in environmental awareness in the 1960s and 1970s largely ignored restoration.

00:43:03	TS discusses contemporary environmentalism.  

00:44:32	Scientific interest has motivated his career.

00:46:15	End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview.

END