Lowry Malcolm. Trad. S. SprielLivre Rare Book
Archive of Primary Documents Correspondence and Photographs Relating to the Ozark Motorcycle Club St. Louis Missouri c.1927-1942
81167St. Louis: Ozark M.C. 1927-1942. A rich archive of original source documents for one of the earliest motorcycle clubs in the Midwest with clear precursors to the "Outlaw" clubs of the post-WW2 era. Includes minute books for the Club's primary years of activity; founding documents including draft Constitution and By-Laws; membership rolls; correspondence; printed and promotional ephemera and photographs complete inventory in note below. Condition generally Good or better with expected aging to some documents and a few in fragile condition. The archive has been removed from the decomposing ring binders in which it was originally housed and organized into manila file-folders respecting where possible the as-found order of contents. The original binders have been retained and are included with the archive. The entirety comprises sixteen file folders housed in two hinged Hollinger boxes occupying about half a linear foot.<br /> <br /> <br /> INVENTORY:<br /> <br /> BOX 1: <br /> <br /> Folder 1. By-Laws and Constitution. Ten items including five drafts in mimeograph with extensive holograph edits; one apparently final draft in typescript on lined paper; related documents including roster of charter members with addresses; suggestions for effective Presidency; directory of other regional motorcycle clubs. <br /> <br /> Folder 2. Minutes June 15 1928 - October 18th 1929. Continuous; 32 leaves used plus 12 blank<br /> <br /> Folder 3. Minutes Jan 8 1937 - December 24th 1937. 24 leaves fully used recto & verso<br /> <br /> Folder 4. Minutes Jan 7 1938 - December 30th 1938. 21 leaves fully used recto & verso<br /> <br /> Folder 5. Minutes Jan 6 1939 - March 1 1940. 26 leaves most used recto & verso plus about 20 blank leaves as found. Entry for March 1 1949 is annotated possibly at a later date: "This is last meeting." <br /> <br /> Folder 6. Membership Forms 1935 - 1939. 33 numbered completed forms plus two unnumbered completed in holograph with name date of application record of membership vote and signatures. This presumably comprises a complete list of all Club members from 1935-1939.<br /> <br /> Folder 7. Miscellaneous correpondence 1930 - 1942. Twelve pieces on various subjects including political statements apparently by Michael Verderber not related to Club activities. Envelopes laid in as found. <br /> <br /> Folder 8. Printed and promotional items. Six pieces produced by the Club and by others. <br /> <br /> Folder 9. Midwest Motorcycle Association. Two pieces documenting an attempt by Ozark M.C. members to start a rival association to the American Motorcycle Association. <br /> <br /> Folder 10. Races Meets and Competitions 1932 - 1939. Sixteen pieces including correspondence race forms sanctioning certificates and related materials relating to competitions and Club meets. <br /> <br /> Folder 11. American Motorcycle Association 1930 - 1941. Eight items including correspondence bulletins and blank forms from the American Motorcycle Association the main sanctioning body for motorcycle clubs across the U.S. <br /> <br /> Folder 12. Ephemera including event tickets pit passes business cards club receipt book for 1936. Nine unique items some present in multiples. <br /> <br /> Folder 13. Photographs. Thirty-nine vintage silver-gelatin photographs most measuring 3" x 5" or the reverse; a few smaller; also twenty-three original negatives some but not all replicating the prints above. <br /> <br /> Folder 14. Photographs. Three larger format vintage silver-gelatin photographs two measuring ca. 8" x 10"; the third 5" x 7" on card mount this image fully cracked through image at lower third; verso of board held together with masking tape. <br /> <br /> Folder 15. Michael Verderber personal. Two items relating to 1943 registration certificate for Verderber's Indian Model "4" motorcycle.<br /> <br /> Folder 16. Fragments and extraneous envelopes as found. <br /> <br /> BOX 2: Remnants of 3 original binders from which the archive was removed. <br /> <br /> -------------------------------------<br /> <br /> The original Ozark Motorcycle Club was founded in 1927 by a group of twenty St. Louis cycling enthusiasts including Mike Verderber who appears to have been the original keeper of these documents Louis Ahrens first President Fred Tremozini Vice President Hank Eiler and sixteen others. It is unclear when the group began holding formal meetings; extant minutes for this iteration of the club begin with June 15 1928 and end without warning or explanation on Oct 18 1929 leaving about twenty blank leaves in the minute book. As this last recorded meeting was held just six days before the stock market crash the cause for this cessation of club activities may be conjectured. We can find no public mention of the Club in its pre-Depression phase; the minute book included here would appear to be the only record of its existence. <br /> <br /> The Club was reconstituted on August 16 1935 in the depths of the Great Depression by Verderber and about twenty others. Included here are multiple drafts both in manuscript and mimeograph for the new Club's Constitution and By-Laws which specify that members shall be "White Male Riders and Owners of Motorcycles" emphasis in the original but "may bring their wives or such persons as they see fit to club-affairs." The earliest minutes appear to be missing but the archive's record of meetings is complete from January 1937 to March 1 1940 which appears to have been the Club's last official meeting so marked in the minute book though other evidence included in the archive suggests that the club persisted for at least a few more years perhaps more as a social group than a functioning organization. For the first two years meetings focus mostly on club events including meets tours and rallies. The availability of beer at meetings is a topic that arises with some frequency as does the matter of the American Motorcycle Association for which at least a few members express strong antipathies see our note regarding Outlaw motorcycle clubs below; at one point it appears that a club faction even attempts to launch their own regional association the Midwest Motorcycle Association to challenge the AMA's supremacy in the promotion of meets "gypsy tours" and hill climb events. Eventually the Ozark M.C. appears to have made the decision to affiliate with the A.M.A. though we mysteriouly do not find any vote for this decision in the meeting minutes just correspondence from the AMA sanctioning club events but it clearly cost the club some members: by 1938 membership had dwindled from 22 riders to no more than a dozen. In later years beginning especially around mid-1939 meetings address with increasing urgency the Club's dwindling membership and futile attempts to collect dues from the many members in arears. By early 1940 it seems the eight remaining members can agree on very little; the minutes grow sparse and by March of that year the Club appears defunct. <br /> <br /> This winding narrative is supported by the archive's many other documents including correspondence which includes several lengthy letters from club president Verderber to prominent public figures including Franklin Delano Roosevelt publicity materials and especially photographs which are remarkable: all are vernacular nearly all captioned with names and dates taken during biker events throughout the midwest evoking the rough-and-tumble nature of early cycling events and the decidedly proletarian milieu in which they took place. "Outlaw" culture was still a few years away from being fully articulated by clubs such as The Outlaws The Boozefighters The Bandidos and others; but its roots are most definitely to be found among these risk-taking beer-drinking blue-collar riders of the Great Depression.<br /> <br /> The roots of Outlaw motorcycling in America have been widely documented typically traced to the years directly after the Second World War when returnig G.I.'s out of work and deprived of the close bonds they'd formed in battle found an outlet in the rough and occasionally dangerous world of open-road cycling. "Outlaw" Clubs - those that refused to affiliate with the American Motorcycle Association a commercial trade organization founded in 1924 - developed a mostly undeserved reputation for antisocial and sometimes violent behavior cemented in the public imagination by the 1953 Marlon Brando film The Wild One and its many imitators. But as is clear from the evidence in this archive an independent and contrarian spirit prevailed even in the pre-War years and we suspect it was members of Depression-era clubs such as this one who were most active in forming the post-war Outlaw clubs. In fact Verderber in one telling line from a long letter to his girlfriend included here describes himself as an "outlaw" rider - then thinking better of it crosses the word out and replaces it with "independent." By war's end such reticence would be a thing of the past; independent bikers would begin wearing the "outlaw" label proudly and defiantly. And though the use of the term "outlaw" before the war is hardly unnown - the Outlaws M.C. of Chicago were using it as early as 1935 - documentation of these pre-War motorcycle clubs is nearly non-existent making the current archive an invaluable resource for both the study of working-class culture in the midwest and one of the earliest instantiations of a uniquely American subculture. unknown
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