Walter Mason Camp interviews, between 1900 and 1923
Scope and Contents
Contains records of interviews conducted by Camp for his research on the Indian Wars.
Dates
- between 1900 and 1923
Creator
- Camp, Walter Mason, 1867-1925 (creator, Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Condition restricted; permission to use materials must be obtained from the Supervisor of Reference Services. Patrons should use typescripts or microfilm copy.
Conditions Governing Use
It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances. Permission to publish material from the Walter Mason Camp papers must be obtained from the Supervior of Reference Services and/or the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Coordinating Committee.
Biographical History
Walter Mason Camp (1867-1925) was a railroad engineer and writer, in the midwestern United States. Camp also performed research on the history of the India Wars of the Plains, in particular the Battle of the Little Big Horn of 1876.
Walter Camp was born on April 21, 1867 to Treat Bosworth Camp and Hannah A. Brown in Camptown, Pennsylvania. In 1883, he began his railroad service on the Lehigh Valley Railroad as a trackman, which would lead to his forty-two year railroad career. He entered Pennsylvania State College in the fall of 1887, and graduated as a civil engineer in 1891. In 1895 Camp resumed post graduate studies in electrical and steam engineering at the University of Wisconsin. In 1898 Walter married Emeline L.F. Sayles in Blue Island, Illinois. Walter Camp became the engineering editor of the "Railway and Engineering Review" in 1897 and served faithfull and well as a railway editor for the following twenty-eight years.
Walter Camp's interest in documenting the Indian Wars began in 1903, after which his vacations for the following twenty summers were spent in research among the Indians and in talking with people who had survived the Little Bighorn River fight and other battles. He personally visited over forty battlefields and interviewed almost 200 survivors of western battles. Walter Camp died on August 3, 1925 in Kankakee, Illinois having published very little of his Indian wars research, but
having collected an amount of original source material during his lifetime.
Extent
2 boxes
1 half box
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
Arranged in three subseries: 1. Group 1 interviews (22 x 27 cm). 2. Group 2 interviews (14 x 19 cm). 3. Group 3 interviews (11 x 14 cm).
The interview notes are arranged alphabetically by interviewee surname and in three sizes. The latter was done in order to appropriately preserve and protect the original notes, which in some cases are extremely fragile and worn, and in order to facilitate convenient filing and retrieval. Camp made notes on any scrap of paper that was handy. The ones made in the field are on small, fragile pieces of paper; the ones made in his office at home are often on full size ( 8-1/2 x 11 in.) sheets of paper. Others were cut into small pieces with scissors, probably by Ellison or Brown. These differing sizes did not readily lend themselves to being interfiled and adequately controlled in the upright files. Therefore, they were sorted into the three sizes indicated in the Container List. Apparently, Camp numbered his interview notes (or perhaps Brown added the numbers later). The Lilly Library has envelopes of Unclassified Field Notes with the following numbers: 2-6, 8-11, 33-38, 41-44, 46-50, 60-62, 64-65, 67-72, 77-83, 85-92, 115-116, 121-122, 127, and 129-136. None of the Camp notes for interviews or general research received by the Lee Library had numbers on them. Occasionally, as noted above, a letter was interfiled with the interview notes. Unless there was a compelling reason not to do so, those letters were separated to the correspondence file. The contents of the interview notes are reflected in the index by name and subject.
Other Finding Aids
Folder-level inventory available online. http://files.lib.byu.edu/ead/XML/MSS57.xml
General
Camp consistently used the following abbreviations in his interview and general notes: "Inq," "Inv," and "Ing." His "g's" are not always distinguishable from his "q's," but we have surmised that the "Inq" has reference to "Matters of Inquiry" or "Inquire," and that "Inv" and "Ing" mean "Interviewing or Interview." Finally, some of the brief note fragments that consisted only of a questions or a "to do" reminder in reference to a locality, such as research to do in St. Louis or people to interview in St. Louis, were grouped together by that locality.
Repository Details
Part of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Repository
1130 HBLL
Brigham Young University
Provo Utah 84602 United States