Historical Montana Campaign Literature #3

Are you ready to get excited?
 
Yes, it’s another installment of historical campaign literature from Montana!
 
Loyal readers will remember our first post in August 2015 and our second in November 2015.
 
Today we’ll put up our third.
 
Oh boy, I can barely contain my enthusiasm!
 
Let’s just hop right into it.
 

 
The first piece of campaign lit I’d like to look at comes from the Arnold Olsen for Governor campaign of 1956.
 

Arnold Olsen for Montana Governor in 1956

 
As you can see, this is a brochure. What you probably can’t see is how big it is.
 
Here, take a look:
 

 
So that thing folds out to show 10 total pages when you count front and back.
 
Here’s what one of those looks like:

 
So we get some fun comic-style images that tell Arnold Olsen’s life story.
 
Right away with this frame we get that he’s a hard worker and not afraid of ‘menial’ jobs.
 
He was a newsboy, grocery clerk, and laborer. Of course, those were all unionized positions back then too.
 
What I like about this is that “Right to Wreck” reference there, making it clear that our current Montana battle with Right to Work is far from new.
 

 
Let’s move up to the 1970s and look in on Dick Shoup.
 
He was a Missoula mayor and a U.S. Representative. Here’s some of his literature:
 

 
I like that brochure. It’s got a nice image on the front and a good one on the back.
 
When you fold it out you get lots of info on Shoup as well as some images of his family.
 

 
I don’t like that large image of him with the mic as he looks confused.
 
Western Montana voters would have liked it, however, as it reminded them of the Missoula ROTC-takeover and Shoup’s successful handling of it.
 
So it got the job done…and Shoup got elected.
 
Now I’d like to point out a mailer he sent out to constituents in 1974:
 

You’ll get tons of these in our representatives’ biographical folders at the Montana Historical Society Research Center.
 
This one is good because it shows that Shoup gets around, or at least his staff does.
 
Yeah, this was back when they had mobile offices:
 

Dick Shoup's Mobile Office, 1974

 
Pretty cool, huh?
 

 
Finally, let’s head up into the late-1970s and early-1980s with our friend Max Baucus.
 
Baucus took out Olsen in the ’74 Democratic Primary and he took out Shoup in the ’74 general. That’s how he first got to D.C. as a U.S. Representative.
 
Check out these cool flyers:
 

 
Baucus’ 1974 U.S. House run was a monumental affair, one we can learn from.
 
Alas, few have the gall to replicate it…or the stamina.
 

 
You see, Max was part of the 631 Club, a select group that may have only included himself.
 
After all, how many people do you know that walk 631 miles from Gardiner to Yaak?
 

 
That’s impressive, damn impressive.
 
I was very impressed with the flyers that Max had, as well as the images he chose for them.
 
Here are several that he did over the years.
 

Max Baucus walking in 1974

 
When I look at these images I can see why Max Baucus was elected so many times in Montana.
 
I can see quite clearly.





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If you'd like to see Montana history more clearly, please check out my 5 books on the subject.

We cover the time from the dinosaurs to 1960.

Book 6, covering the years of 1960 to 1990, will be out sometime this summer.