The American School of Wildlife Protection was the result of a summer meeting of the Iowa Conservation Association (ICA) held at McGregor, Iowa, in July 1918. Leaders of the ICA believed that their annual March meeting should be supplemented by a summer session. The school was established in McGregor in August 1919 and continued each summer until 1941. The school was also known as the MacGregor Wild Life School and the American Institute of Nature Studies.

One of the first of its kind in the United States, the school's purpose was to promote conservation values among the public. The school's sessions combined education with activism and included both lectures and field trips. Topics included Native American history and lore, botany, geology, forestry, entomology, and ornithology. The sessions lasted one week for the first few years, and were later expanded to two weeks.

Open to all ages, most attendees stayed in cabins or tents on McGregor Heights, but a few would stay in hotels or private homes in town. Faculty members were drawn from Midwestern colleges and state and federal agencies. Dr. Louis H. Pammel, botany professor (1889-1931) at Iowa State, was one of the school's founders and instructors. George Bennett served as its first director.

This collection (1919-1992, n.d.) includes articles about the school, correspondence, a report, a library listing of the school's books, photographs, interview transcripts, photographic prints of the school's students and teachers, faculty rosters, the nomination application for the National Register of Historic Places and informational programs. Some of the records in this collection were found in the school's main building after the school's closure in 1941, but the collection also contains other material including articles published about the school, interview transcripts, and a folder of photocopied materials from the papers (RS 13/5/13) of one of the founders and instructors at the school, Louis Hermann Pammel.

Information about the school's director, George Bennett, and interviews with students and others involved with the school are included. Summary histories of the school can be found throughout the collection, including the articles, National Register of Historic Places application, and a report by Michael Kelly. The slide prints are photographic prints made from the glass slides which were used for the evening slide shows on the pavilion, narrated by George Bennett. A folder in the collection contains correspondence identifying some of the people and places pictured in the prints.

Related materials may be found in the Louis Hermann Pammel Papers (RS 13/5/13) and the Philip A. DuMont Papers (MS 153).

The collection is organized alphabetically.