Abstract

Walter William Liggett (1886-1935), American author, journalist and political activist from Minnesota, worked at several newspapers in New York City before becoming a free-lance writer. In New York, he worked for a succession of papers, including the Times, Sun, Post, News, and the Socialist publication, The Call. His writing career began during World War I at local papers-the Pioneer Press, Minneapolis Journal , and St. Paul Dispatch. In 1932 he returned to his home in Minnesota. A large portion of his time was spent promoting the Minnesota-based populist reform movement of the 1920s known as the Farmer-Labor Party, and working on publications for a Farmer-Labor newspaper, the Midwest American. On December 9, 1935, Liggett was gunned down in front of his wife and daughter in Minneapolis after exposing a connection between local organized crime and Floyd B. Olson, the progressive Farmer-Labor governor of Minnesota. In 1998, Marda Liggett Woodbury published an account of Liggett's life and assassination in a book titled Stopping the Presses: The Murder of Walter W. Liggett. The bulk of the collection includes material related to Marda Liggett Woodbury's research on the life and assassination of her father, Walter Liggett. The material consists of newspaper clippings, research files, and interviews. The collection also includes some family papers and photographs and published writings of Liggett's mother, Edith Fleischer Liggett.