RECORDINGS OF ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS, 1973-1981, bulk 1974-1976

Summary: This series contains 243 original cassettes and 243 duplicates of oral history interviews with Farmingdale residents and others spanning the period 1973 to 1981, with the bulk dating from 1974 to 1976.

Interviews were conducted by Gertrude Dubrovsky, Sidney Gray, Nora Kim, Dorothy LaMantia, Norman Lemberg and Linda Oppenheim. Of the 118 interviews, 19 are in Yiddish or in a mixture of Yiddish and English. Although most of the informants were Jewish farmers and members of the Farmingdale community, a few interviews were with residents of similar agricultural communities and people closely connected with the Farmingdale farm operations, as well as non-Jewish Farmingdale farmers who were also interviewed.

The interviews cover the lives in Europe and the migration experience of those farmers who were immigrants, the early life of those who were native-born, the reasons for the decision to move to Farmingdale, how the settlers formed and maintained a cohesive community and the extent to which the community served their needs, individual evaluations of the Farmingdale experience, and discussion of the factors that contributed to the demise of Jewish farming in Farmingdale.