About the Collection

Portrait of John Olin (Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Image ID: WHi-33713)

This digital collection of historic reports provides accessibility to early information about the City of Madison around the turn of the 20th century. The Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association Reports denote the moneys received and expended and work done by the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association in order to attract attention to the city’s natural beauty and surrounding lakes. The impetus behind the association was that by making Madison’s natural surroundings more accessible, visitors would get a better idea of the magnificence of the location, and advantages of Madison as a summer resort or place of permanent residence.

The Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association Reports offer a glimpse into a time in local history when pleasure drives were first considered, and thought to be of skeptical benefit to the public. These same drives and walkways are now considered an integral part of Madison’s landscape.

John M. Olin (1892-1982) was a leading industrialist, entrepreneur, conservationist, philanthropist, scientist, and sportsman. This collection also contains thousands of pages of carbon copies of correspondence between John M. Olin and various people concerned with the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association.

Funding

Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association Reports and Related Materials is a collaborative project completed by the UWDCC, the Madison Public Library and Wisconsin Historical Society. It was funded through a 2007 Friends of the Madison Public Library grant and a 2010 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. LSTA grants provide financial support for public libraries to digitize and make available online, their local library resources. For more information about LSTA grants in Wisconsin, contact the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) Division for Libraries and Technology or visit the LSTA grant Web site at http://pld.dpi.wi.gov/pld_lsta.