CHESTER BRUVOLD:

The collection consists of the correspondence, printed materials, and legal case files of a Minneapolis (Minn.) lawyer and pacifist. Bruvold became active in the peace movement while a law student at the University of Minnesota in the late 1930s. When the Selective Service Act was passed in 1940, Bruvold registered as a conscientious objector and received an agricultural deferment which lasted until sometime in June 1945 when he lost the deferment and then spent the next 14 months in a conservation camp. After Bruvold passed the state bar exam in 1947 he began a law practice that defended many conscientious objectors and anti-war protestors. He was also concerned with the cooperative movement and worked with a number of housing, credit union, food, farming, and health care cooperatives.

The papers consist largely of files documenting Bruvold's casework in these two broad areas as well as his early association with pacifist organizations and the Minneapolis No-Conscription Campaign. There are case files (1948-1975) of many conscientious objectors, many of them argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court, the Eighth District Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court which heard the landmark case of Gutknecht v. United States. Casework regarding cooperatives (1949-1980) documents Bruvold's legal work for a large number of individual cooperatives and cooperative associations. The collection also includes a set of miscellaneous case files that document Bruvold's work on other civil and criminal actions. These cases range from job terminations to controlled substance arrests.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Chester Bruvold Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 14,277; 15,373

Processing Information:

Processed by: Bonnie Palmquist, September 1991; Monica Manny Ralston, February 2001

Catalog ID number: 990017148680104294

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Files related to Bruvold's association with the pacifist movement and with conscientious objectors are roughly divided in two periods. The first period consists of files that originated when Bruvold was a student at the University of Minnesota and was active with pacifist groups opposed to compulsory conscription and to American involvement in the second World War. Materials from this period include Bruvold's correspondence as chairman of the Minneapolis No-Conscription Campaign with the War Resisters League, the Campaign for World Government, the Youth Committee Against War, the Independent Campaign Committee for Thomas and Kreuger, and others. Also included from this period are many printed materials distributed by these and other pacifist organizations, materials from youth conferences that Bruvold attended, and minutes from the organizing convention of the Socialist Party of Minnesota.

The second period consists of files that were created after World War II through Bruvold's work as an attorney representing conscientious objectors, draft resisters, and anti-war protesters. The case files range in date from 1948-1975, but the bulk are centered around the Vietnam War period. The files contain consultative notes, correspondence, indictments, briefs, motions, orders, hearing transcripts, background material, and copies of Selective Service files for men who were charged with registration delinquencies and induction refusals or who contested their classification status. Many of these cases focus on the October 1967 memoranda issued by General Louis B. Hershey, head of the Selective Service, that directed local draft boards to reclassify and accelerate the induction of draft protesters. Several cases were argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court, the Eighth District Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Bruvold argued the landmark Gutknecht case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that men declared delinquent as a result of protest activities could not be accelerated for induction. Bruvold successfully used this same argument in the cases of Rolf Kolden, John Andrew Seman, and Francis Robert Shor.

The subject files contain material related to Bruvold's representation of Vietnam War protesters on the University of Minnesota campus and the "Minnesota Eight" arrested for raiding draft board offices. Also included within the subject files are materials pertaining to a bail fund for conscientious objectors and a network of lawyers.

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Bruvold's work with cooperatives primarily consisted of formulating articles of incorporation and bylaws for cooperative associations. These associations represent a number of communal, residential, financial, food marketing, farm, and health care cooperatives. The largest files pertain to Group Health Plan, Pulaski Lake Shores Association, and Twin City Coop Credit Union. The files contain correspondence, consultative notes, articles of incorporation, bylaws, minutes of board and shareholders meetings, and financial statements. Also included are documents related to Bruvold's representation of credit unions in loan default proceedings.

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The miscellaneous files consist of both subject and case files that document Bruvold's activities in areas other than pacifism and the cooperative movement. The majority of the miscellaneous files are case related files. These include a file index, adoption and guardianship proceedings, protesters who demonstrated against a commercial restaurant franchise, controlled substance arrests, a tenant-landlord rent control dispute, a college tenure appeal, and resistance to the incorporation of the Village of Coon Rapids. Subject oriented files include materials pertaining to a bond fund established for Minnesotans who participated in civil rights marches in Mississippi and newsletters from a pacifist who worked with an aid agency in Laos.

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Northwest Pacifist, the news bulletin of the Pacifist Action Fellowship with which Bruvold was affiliated, is available in the serials collections of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Cooperative societies -- Minnesota.

Apartment houses, Cooperative -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Communal living -- Minnesota -- Twin Cities Metropolitan Area.

Conscientious objectors -- Minnesota.

Consumer cooperatives -- Minnesota.

Credit unions -- Minnesota.

Draft -- Law and legislation -- Minnesota.

Draft resisters -- Minnesota.

Health maintenance organizations -- Minnesota.

Housing, cooperative -- Minnesota.

Law -- Minnesota -- Cases.

Radicalism -- Minnesota.

Socialist parties -- Minnesota.

Underground press -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Draft resisters -- Minnesota.

Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Protest movements -- Minnesota.

Persons:

Gutknecht, David Earl.

Stach, Alex.

Organizations:

CCCO/An Agency for Military and Draft Counseling.

Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.

Youth Committee Against War.

Pacifist Action Fellowship.

Group Health Plan, inc.

Minnesota Civil Liberties Union. Committee to Study the Constitutionality of the Draft.

North Country Housing Co-op Alliance (Duluth, Minnesota).

Pulaski Lake Shores Association (Minnesota).

Socialist Party of Minnesota.

Twin City Co-ops Credit Union (Minneapolis, Minn.).

Twin City Metropolitan Town Meeting (Minneapolis, Minnesota).

National Youth Anti-War Congress (1939 : Chicago, Ill.).

National Pacifist Youth Conference (1939 : Milford, Ind.).

Places:

Coon Rapids (Minnesota).

Document Types:

Legal files.

Legal instruments.

Occupations:

Lawyers--Minnesota--Minneapolis.

Pacifists -- Minnesota-- Twin Cities Metropolitan Area.

Titles:

Reporter for Conscience' Sake.

CCCO news notes

News notes of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.

Reason (Minneapolis, Minn.).

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