New Jersey State Legislature Oral History Project

The years between 1965 and 1985 constitute one of the most significant periods in the history of the New Jersey State Legislature as a developing institution. During that period the legislature increased its capacity and inclination to assume its constitutional role as a branch of government commensurate with the executive and judiciary branches in the shaping of public policy.

In order to preserve for posterity the reminiscences and insights of current and former legislators and other important participants in and eyewitnesses to the evolution of the New Jersey State Legislature during this period of its enhanced power and performance, the Legislative Services Commission of the New Jersey State Legislature sponsored the New Jersey State Legislature Oral History Project.

The Project was funded by a grant to Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and administered by the University's Department of History. The Department engaged historian John O'Donnell as Lecturer (Visiting Associate Professor) to direct the project and serve as principal interviewer.

The Project was formally initiated on 1 July 1999 and concluded on 30 June 2003. Interviews were conducted in a three-year period between May 2000 and May 2003.

The Project conducted a total of 97 interviews of 39 potential memoirists. Thirty-seven (37) interviewees approved their memoirs for publication. These memoirs comprise over 130 hours of interviews and over 2,000 pages of single-spaced transcript.

The audio recordings and transcripts of the collected memoirs have been gifted to and reposited in (1) the Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries in New Brunswick, (2) the Office of Legislative Services (OLS) Library in the State House Annex in Trenton, and (3) the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton. Rutgers, the principal repository, maintains the most complete collection.