ROOSEVELT ORAL HISTORY COMMITTEE FILES, 1981-1983

Summary:Correspondence, transcripts, cassette tapes and other materials related to the work of the Roosevelt Oral History Project, an ad hoc committee set up in 1981.

Most of the letters are addressed to Evelyn Datz and Freda Hepner, the coordinators of the project. The goals of the project were to interview remaining early Roosevelt settlers and their children and to collect and preserve memorabilia documenting the history of the borough. This series contains documentation of the project such as correspondence setting up interviews, lists of questions, notes, inventories of material collected and receipts for transcribing tapes and reproducing photographs, as well as the products of the project: 50 original cassette tapes, duplicates of each tape and transcripts of the interviews. Of particular interest are interviews with Benjamin Brown's wife Sarah and with artist Bernarda Bryson Shahn.

This series also includes tapes and transcripts of four interviews conducted by photographer and writer Edwin Rosskam in the 1960s, including interviews with architect Alfred Kastner, artist Ben Shahn, Jersey Homesteads Community Manager Harry Glanz, and Roosevelt mayor Irving Plungian.

Please see AUDIO/VISUAL FILES for tapes of the interviews, as well as other VHS tapes of interviews with Roosevelt residents.