Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Unpacking the history of bowhunting and archery

I am a member of the board of directors of the Wisconsin Bowhunting Heritage Foundation Museum. Like many small, private museums, we operate with a small, volunteer, (uncompensated) board and like many small museums, we have too little space to display the history of bowhunting in WI and too few donations but our board does a great job of carrying out our mission within our means.

Here is a link to the museum.

https://www.wisconsinbowhunters.org/museum#!

One of our board members is Grant Whiffen of Milwaukee. Grant and his Brother Larry Whiffen Jr. are the sons of the late Larry Whiffen Sr. If you know anything about the history of Archery and bowhunting, the Whiffen name is a familiar one. Larry Sr. started Whiffen archery in 1937. Here is Larry's induction into the archery hall of fame.

http://www.archeryhalloffame.com/Whiffen%20Larry.html

Larry Whiffen Sr. was a promoter of archery and bowhunting. Here is a mention of Larry from the Archery Trade Association. Pay particular attention the last 4 lines of their citation as it will factor into the rest of what Im writing.



As mentioned, earlier, Larry Whiffen Sr's son grant sits on our board at the Museum and is donating items from the life of His father, to the museum that he is authorizing the sale of, in an effort to help the museum raise funds.

I drove to Grants home in Milwaukee to talk and pick up the items he donated. In addition, another large box of items from the estate was delivered to me by the WBHF Museum president (Brian Tessmann). Then I began the task of cataloging the many items in preparation for the sale of these items.

The items Ive sorted through thus far include photos (and photo albums), negatives (celluloid and glass backed), paperwork from the business and events whiffen ran, newspaper clippings, ledgers, advertising, The rough drafts and illustrations from Larry's book entitled "shooting the bow". and many personal items some dating back to the late 1800's. Here is where I started.

I have not yet counted the number of photos but I estimate them to be in excess of 1000. there is about 40 pounds of items. The bulk of the photos were taken by Larry or pictures taken of Larry but there are also photos sent to Larry. This is a very tiny sample of the multitude of the items.



I will not have the ability to photograph all of the items in preparation of the sale but as mentioned in the ATA citation at the beginning of my post here, Larry traveled the nation to speak and promote archery and bowhunting and put on shows and events and to promote his own products like bows, arrows, his Bodkin broadheads, quiver, fletching jig, etc.

Larry Whiffen Sr.




Larry traveled with Fred bear and others to promote bowhunting and worked with other historical figures in the origins of bowhunting. Below are some of the photos that immediately caught my eye.





Whiffen archery Business ledger from 1933 and 34



Ive only just begun the process of making some of these items ready for sale. I doubt that Grant had gone through the contents of this box before turning it over to me so I will reaffirm that 100% of the contents will be made for sale since some of the items date back to the late 1800's and are photos of his grand parents and the documents related to the passing of his grandparents. Its really an honor and pleasure to be able to sort through these items and I have a long way to go.

If you are a youngling (a person 35 years old or younger) these images and names wont men a lot to you but these guys are the reason you get to enjoy bowhunting.

That is a treasure. You are a saint, putting together these documents and photos.
They should be a great fund raiser for your organization
Thanks again for showing these. Brings back memories of wearing out old catalogs wishing for items I could save for and purchase with money from mowing lawns.
Mike

That is a awesome collection of archery history. Thanks for posting

very nice old pictures with some great archery history ! thank you for posting these fine pictures ! Pete53

Wow, that’s some history, thanks for sharing.