UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #206
ROBINSON, ARTHUR H.

ROBINSON, Arthur H. (1915-2004)
Professor of Geography
At UW: 1936-1938; 1945-1980

Interviewed: 1981	
Interviewer: Laura Smail
Length: 4 hours

Background; Work before coming to UW; Geography Department in 1940s; Formation of Meteorology Department; Turning geography into science; Replacement of regional studies; Development of area studies; Use of computers; His role in developing quantitative geography; Use of computers for cartographic problems; Setting up Cartographic Laboratory; Initial opposition to it; Course requirements for cartographers; Art in cartography; Business arrangements; Institute for Environmental Studies; TA Strike of 1970; Tripp Commons and University Club; Athletic Board; Committee on Student Conduct and Appeals; Mapping in Wisconsin.

2nd Interview: March 1982	
Interviewer: Laura Smail
Indexed by: Elaine Ayers
Length: 1 hour, 3 minutes

Committee on Student Conduct and Appeals; Ted Zillman; Office of the State Cartographer; Committee on State Cartography; Legalization of State-Plane Coordinates; Athletic Board; Big Ten Conference; Geography as a discipline.

1st Interview, December 1981

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:00	Origins.  His father's career--explains where he was born.  Moved to different places; University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio.

00:03:30	“Academic atmosphere” growing up. Introduction to geography.  Originally had been in history.

00:03:54	First post-graduation job was as a secretary to a member of the Ohio Board of Liquor Control.  How he got the job. AR wanted to do graduate work in geography.  Wallace McConnell at Miami.  Professor Vernor C. Finch at Wisconsin asks AR to be his assistant, 1936.  Talk about how little he learned at Miami. AR earned his MA in 1938

00:07:44	AR married and moved to Ohio State.

00:08:59	Beginnings of World War II. AR got a job as Coordinator of Information-Geography Division in Washington, D.C.  Richard Hartshorne, Roderick Peattie.  Pearl Harbor Day.  Things AR did as map division chief.

00:13:33	Plight of map-making; situation U.S. found itself in.  Glen T. Trewartha.

00:14:56	What Map-Making Division did--thematic maps.  Course work had little to do 	with job; other job experience helped more.

00:17:10	History training did not help in career.  Why AR felt mature for his years.  Went to school in England for a year.

00:20:35	After World War II, Finch invited AR to return as Assistant Professor.  AR said “to hell with the government” and accepted the offer.  The couple’s first child. AR did freelance cartography to supplement his $3200 annual salary (1945-46).

00:24:41	Experiences on "way back" to Wisconsin--chief map-officer at Quebec and Cairo Conferences in WWII.  OSS Map Division.  AR drew maps that Allies used to divide Germany at Cairo Conference.  Travel to Cairo.

00:27:52	Return to Madison in January, 1946.

00:28:28	Geography Department staff.  Finch’s importance as chairman of department--major professor for all graduate students.  Compared with information provided by Hartshorne.

00:31:08	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2 

00:31:10	Memories of Finch.  Story about how Finch helped out when AR first taught. Finch was “deadly dull” as a lecturer.

00:33:54	Skyrockets—a football game cheer used to disrupt class. Rowdiness of students. William H. Kiekhofer's positive reaction to skyrockets.  More on Finch as a lecturer and teacher.

00:36:25	Standing of the Geography Department.  Sort of teaching done there.  Finch, Trewartha; Elements of Geography.  Physical Geography class.  Story of a McGraw-Hill luncheon.  Establishment of Finch's and Trewartha's reputations.  Finch's class in cartography was horrid.

00:41:55	Reid A. Bryson – his arrival and departure to form the Meteorology Department.  Eric R. Miller and Trewartha's course in Meteorology.  How geography got the name "Mother of the Sciences."  Verner E. Suomi.

00:47:17	Feelings on starting a new department (Meteorology).  Problems it entailed. 

00:49:07	Problems of "soft money", re government funds/contract money.  Trend with this system.  Where academic system is now and why this is.  Ways of getting to know students.

00:57:31	Change of environment at UW.  Difference of opinion on whether it was better before or after changes. How geography has been affected by these changes; effect of "math revolutions." Geography more of a social science.

01:02:31	End of tape.

Tape 2/Side 1

01:02:33	Efforts to make human side of geography into a science. Regional studies fell by wayside. Area studies developed after WWII.  Aims and goals of regional and area studies.  Jealousy among disciplines.  AR thinks geography should be a core course (area studies).  Geographers felt misunderstood.  Now more systematic.

01:12:27	AR did not object to idea of area studies.  Geography covers globe.

01:13:25	Use of computers.  His paper "Perks and Pokes."  “Hyper” and “hypo” quantitative geography.  AR instrumental in getting quantitative geography going.  A group that met once a year for a weekend with their families.  The men spent day talking about possibilities and applications of quantitative geography (before computer era).  Difficulty applying statistical methods to spatial problems.

01:20:41	Began offering courses in quantitative geography.

01:22:51	More on statistical methods.  Gives example.

01:24:52	Question about department’s acceptance of new methods. Department did agree on who would be hired.  Went both directions.  Departments at Ohio State and Iowa both heavily mathematical.  AR prefers education to training as a goal.

01:28:58	AR did use computer--had graduate students solve problems using computers.

01:30:20	Example of cartographic problem solved by computer.  Isoplath maps.

01:33:30	End of side. 

Tape 2/Side 2

1:33:33	Larry E. Travis.  Input of computerization of cartography.  Money problems for time; who would use the computer.

01:38:31	Start of Cartographic Lab.  List of first projects when AR arrived in 1946.  His initial project assistant and positions that followed. Dean Mark H. Ingraham's involvement in the lab’s set-up. 

01:45:03	Cartography major not yet established.

01:46:08	Geography Department’s reactions to Cartography major. 

01:50:26	Mentions his book Early Thematic Mapping and the History of Cartography; its focus and how it concerns geographers.

01:53:23	Finch and Harthorne’s support for cartography. Reasons for opposition.

01:55:33	Difficulty of doing research in cartography.  The field’s rapid growth.  Other issues within the field. 

01:57:15	Divisions among the faculty. Example of why department should worry about these divisions. 

02:00:05	Breakdown around geography/cartography as "humanistic" study or "physical science."  The art of cartography.

02:02:47	Possibility of setting up Cartography Lab within History Department.  Leon D. Epstein's confusion over what cartographers do.

02:04:30	Two reasons why Geography and Cartography not entirely separate.

02:04:49	End of tape. 

Tape 3/Side 1 

00:00:10	More on reasons he never tried to set up Cartography Department.

00:01:52	Hiring problems. Jealousy of people in Geography toward Cartography. 

00:02:36	Story of George H. Dury's attempt to quit; Phillip Muehrcke's hiring involved.  Procedure for appointments. 

00:04:40	Classes cartographers teach.  Andrew H. Clark and AR taught a joint course.

00:06:42	Why Art History listed as course; other required courses.  James S. Watrous' book.  Lists another useful book.  Map as work of art.
	
00:12:50	More women in field now.  No more so than any other field.

00:15:40	Question about grants. National Defense Education Act grants--very important.  How funds were used.

00:19:43	Question about whether Cartography Lab charged for work. How it was done, who did the maps, the business arrangements involved, the lab itself.

00:23:39	IES issue a sore point for Geography.  The establishment of IES--Bryson, the way it was set up and how this conflicted with geography department.  How Bryson ran IES.

00:31:13	End of side. 

Tape 3/Side 2

00:31:20	More on Reid Bryson and IES.  How geography reacted. 

00:33:33	The TA strike.  Graduate students in geography; their treatment in comparison to other departments.  AR as graduate student at Ohio State.  Faculty/student split.  How AR handled his TAs.

00:40:10	Students who came to his house for special occasions. Social contacts among graduate and undergraduate students.  More difficult at a big institution. AR’s parents had more frequent student visitors. 

00:43:39	Comparison of workloads and Miami University/Oberlin and Madison; how this affects the department.  Other things that separate faculty--specialization, AR's opinion.  Changes since his time as a graduate student. 

00:48:45	The "poker group" and what they discuss.

00:49:18	What AR misses--Tripp Commons, University Club. 

00:53:21	Committees.  Chairman of Student Conduct and Appeals Committee. Athletic Board.  What bothered him about standards at UW.  Feelings about student athletes at Wisconsin.  Why he was put on the Board.  One of the big incidents on the Board (1964).

01:02:33	End of tape. 

2nd Interview, March 1982

00:00:02	AR served as an expert witness in lawsuit brought against Texas Gulf Sulfur by Leach Goldmines in Ontario’s Supreme Court, 1970. At time of interview, he served as expert witness in dispute between Georgia and South Carolina over a river.

00:02:23	Chairman of Committee on Student Conduct and Appeals. Disciplinary authority of deans over students. Served on the Athletic Board until 1964. Transition of UW from in loco parentis role to current lack of discipline. Anecdote of a student brought before the Committee accused of fighting with a doctor. 

00:07:05	AR remarked further on UW’s transition in controlling and disciplining students. Students’ opinion of discipline. Lack of administrative help on the Committee. 

00:08:47	Veterans not regularly seen by the Committee. Mostly students committing petty crimes and ignoring curfews. Working with Zillman, Dean of Men; Ruedisili, Dean of L&S. AR’s view of Zillman—not particularly rigid for the time.

00:13:14	Establishment of the Office of State Cartographer, early 1960s. Series of natural resource committees, including Committee on State Mapping. Three conclusions of the Committee: promotion of more rapid topographic mapping, legalization of state-plane coordinates, creation of State Cartographer Office. Legislator Norman Anderson pushed bill through the state, Office appropriated by UW. AR advised UW on selecting State Cartographer. Goal was keeping track of and facilitating map-making in conjunction with National Cartographic Information Center. 

00:19:51	Map-making situation before establishment of the Office of State Cartographer. Linking agriculturalists with DNR and state cartographers. Office of State Cartographer overseen by Committee on State Cartography. Especially important with advances in cartographic technologies.

00:23:07	History of local, small-scale topographic and road maps in WI. 

00:28:13	Concerns over natural resources under Governor Nelson. Promotion of topographic mapping of WI and legalization of state-plane coordinates developed in 1930s. Remonumentation and listing of section coordinates. Objected to by surveyors. 

00:35:49	AR’s role on Committee of State Cartography. Frequency of meetings. Original objection to the Committee by state legislature, only succeeded because of backing by Norman Anderson. AR notes that persistence is necessary in governmental success.

00:38:14	Athletic Board. AR believed that he was transferred from Committee on Student Conduct because he argued against many of their actions. Conversation about Athletic Board with Elvehjem. AR argued for the separation of university and City of Madison legal repercussions. Faculty control over athletics in approving schedules, ticket prices, etc.; interactions with Athletic Department. Issues arose over coaches and athletes’ academics. AR considered the Athletic Board a well-run organization. 

00:47:36	Problems with Athletic Board usually came out of institutional disagreements between UW and Big Ten Conference. Eligibility rules and academics.  Chairman Ivy Williamson. 

00:50:32	AR thought UW Athletic Board was the most well-run, besides Ohio State; at the time of the interview he maintained this position. Question of whether Board members should be athletically-minded to serve. 

00:54:59	Anecdote about the importance of football for UW. AR thought that intercollegiate athletics were not necessary for UW’s strength as a university.

00:55:59	Women’s intercollegiate athletics.

00:56:39	Questions of whether the discipline of geography is what it should be and how it has changed, what the most serious problem facing the world is. AR noted the lack of “self-esteem” in geography as a problem. Didn’t think that any great discoveries would re-invent field of geography. Geography as the “mother of sciences.” Substitution of geography for social science in American schools.

01:02:33	End of interview.

END