Collections
- Collection Title
- Black Camden Oral History Project
- Repository
- Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA) at Rutgers University–New Brunswick
- Description
-
The Black Camden Oral History Project aims to preserve the history of African American life and activism in Camden, New Jersey. This is a new project led by Kendra Boyd, Assistant Professor of History at Rutgers–Camden, and Jesse Bayker, Digital Archivist at the Scarlet and Black Research Center. Several interviews have been added to Black Voices at Rutgers as a preview. Interviews conducted in 2022 in 2023 are currently being transcribed and will be added to the website in the coming months.
We are currently recruiting participants for oral history interviews, and we invite African American residents of Camden and alumni of Rutgers–Camden to contact us so we can record your story. Please visit the project website at blackcamden.org for more information. - Subject
- Rutgers University-Camden
- Principal Collection Place
- Camden, New Jersey
- Collection Title
- Rutgers-Newark in the 1960s and 1970s Oral History Collection
- Identifier
- R-MC 024
- Repository
- Rutgers University Archives, a division of Special Collections and University Archives, located at Alexander Library, Rutgers University–New Brunswick
- Collection URL
- https://collections.libraries.rutgers.edu/newark-rutgers-1960-1970s
- https://archives.libraries.rutgers.edu/repositories/3/resources/603
- Description
- Rutgers University librarian Gil Cohen conducted 60 oral history interviews as part of a project to document the city of Newark and Rutgers University-Newark as they were in the 1960s and 1970s. This collection includes 11 interviews with Black students, faculty, and administrators who discuss their memories of the 1969 Conklin Hall takeover by the Black Organization of Students (BOS). The interviews were recorded in the early 1990s, and the collection is housed at Special Collections and University Archives in New Brunswick. The audio recordings and transcripts for this collection have been fully digitized by Rutgers University Libraries.
- Principal Collection Place
- Newark, New Jersey
- Related Links
- Special Collections and University Archives
- Preferred Citation
- The Rutgers-Newark in the 1960s and 1970s Oral History Collection (RMC-024), Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries
- Collection Title
- Rutgers Oral History Archives
- Repository
- Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA) at Rutgers University–New Brunswick
- Collection URL
- https://oralhistory.rutgers.edu/
- Description
-
Based at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, the Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA) has recorded numerous interviews with Black participants, primarily Rutgers alumni and faculty. The collection also includes several interviews with Black New Jerseyans who are not affiliated with Rutgers University. Many of the interviews highlight the military experiences of Black veterans. ROHA interviews usually trace the full course of the person’s life, detailing their family history and experiences beginning with childhood memories.
Established in 1994, ROHA grew out of a project that originally focused on World War II memories. Since then, ROHA has expanded to include life-course interviews on many themes related to Rutgers and New Jersey social and cultural history. ROHA frequently partners with Rutgers faculty to conduct and preserve oral history projects around specific research topics, such as urban redevelopment in New Brunswick and Black activism in Camden. ROHA's digital collection includes over 1,275 oral history interviews with full-text searchable transcripts; the audio recordings are not published. Select video interviews recorded as part of the City of New Brunswick Redevelopment Oral Histories Project have been published digitally.
From ROHA’s establishment in 1994 until 2014, it appears that only approximately 1% of the interviewees were African American. A greater effort to record interviews with Black participants resulted from the 2015 Black on the Banks conference that brought together African American alumni of the 1960s generation. In five years since the conference, ROHA doubled the number of Black voices in the collection. The effort to record interviews with African American alumni, faculty, and staff is ongoing. - Principal Collection Place
- New Brunswick, New Jersey
- Collection Title
- Scarlet and Black Interviews
- Repository
- Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA) at Rutgers University–New Brunswick
- Description
- Dr. Deborah Gray White, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University–New Brunswick and the founding director of the Scarlet and Black research project, has conducted several interviews with a focus on African American history and athletics at Rutgers University. These interviews have been integrated into the Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA) digital collection.
- Subject
- Rutgers University-New Brunswick
- Principal Collection Place
- New Brunswick, New Jersey
- Related Links
- Scarlet and Black Project
- Collection Title
- Women, Education and Leadership at Rutgers
- Repository
- Margery Somers Foster Center at Douglass Library, Rutgers University–New Brunswick
- Description
-
Thirteen individuals were interviewed by filmmaker June Cross for the documentary From the Boarding House to the Boardroom: 250 Years of Women at Rutgers, which was produced by the Institute for Women’s Leadership Consortium, in celebration of Rutgers 250th Anniversary in 2016. The interviews capture the history and evolution of Douglass Residential College over the past several decades. The Margery Somers Foster Center has made the the full transcript and video recording of each interview available as part of the Women, Education and Leadership collection at the Rutgers University Libraries Digital Collections portal.
This collection includes interviews with two Black faculty members: Cheryl Wall and Abena Busia. - Principal Collection Place
- New Brunswick, New Jersey
- Collection Title
- Women's Leadership Interview Archives
- Repository
- Institute for Women's Leadership (IWL), Rutgers University–New Brunswick
- Collection URL
- https://iwl.rutgers.edu/interviews/
- Description
-
This interview collection is comprised of written transcripts of interviews that IWL Leadership Scholars have conducted with women leaders. These transcripts are resources for researchers in the field of women’s leadership, for students interested in challenges and successes women face in leadership, and for practitioners and policymakers working on women’s issues. Broad areas the interviews cover include work and family issues; definitions of leadership; the ways that race, class, and gender influence access to, and exercise of, leadership; and generational issues in leadership. Since the inception of the Leadership Scholars Certificate Program in the fall of 1999, students have conducted annual interviews with outstanding women leaders.
Select transcripts from the collection are accessible on the IWL website; the audio recordings are not published. - Subject
- Women's Leadership
- Principal Collection Place
- New Brunswick, New Jersey
- Collection Title
- Transforming Lives Documentary Films
- Repository
- Institute for Women's Leadership (IWL), Rutgers University–New Brunswick
- Description
- The IWL Transforming Lives Documentary Series contains student-produced short films on women leading change in a variety of contexts. This project at the Institute for Women's Leadership combines filmmaking and interview skills to help undergraduates learn from women leaders who are making a difference in the world and to gain an understanding of the use of media as a vital tool for creating social change in the 21st century.
- Subject
- Women's Leadership
- Principal Collection Place
- New Brunswick, New Jersey
- Related Links
- Rutgers Institute for Women's Leadership
- Collection Title
- History of Medicine Oral History Transcripts
- Repository
- Special Collections in the History of Medicine, George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences Newark Campus
- Collection URL
- https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/health-sciences/visit-study/special-collections-history-medicine/oral-history-transcripts
- Description
-
Rutgers University's George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences in Newark maintains a collection of oral history transcripts. The transcripts are part of the library's Special Collections in the History of Medicine. The oral history collection consists of about 40 interviews with medical professionals who worked and lived in New Jersey. The interviews were conducted in the 1980s and 1990s.
We have identified one Black interviewee in this collection: the prominent obstetrician/gynecologist Lena Edwards.
A list of interviews is available on the library's website, but the audio and transcripts have not been published online. In order to obtain a transcript from the collection, researchers must contact Special Collections in the History of Medicine via the contact form on the library's website. - Principal Collection Place
- Newark, New Jersey
Additional Collections of Interest
The following three collections contain many interviews with African Americans. Interviews from these collections have not been integrated into the Black Voices at Rutgers index, but each of the three collections provides its own portal with robust search capabilities. Researchers are encouraged to visit the websites for these collections to discover more information about their holdings.
- Collection Title
- Krueger-Scott Oral History Collection
- Repository
- Center for Migration and the Global City, Rutgers University-Newark
- Newark Public Library
- Collection URL
- https://kruegerscott.libraries.rutgers.edu/
- Description
-
Krueger-Scott is the largest collection of oral history interviews conducted with African American residents of Newark who came to the city during the Great Migration, as well as those whose local roots stretch back generations.
In the late 1990’s, the Krueger-Scott Cultural Center undertook an ambitious oral history project that conducted over 100 interviews with African American Newarkers who had migrated to the city between 1910-1970, as well as those whose local roots spanned generations. The project—led by KSCC Director Catherine Lenix-Hooker and project coordinator Mageline Little, with the assistance of historians Giles R. Wright II, Clement Alexander Price and the collective wisdom of volunteers from Bethany Baptist Church—generated a collection of narratives that offer a rich, nuanced understanding of Newark’s history.
Interviewees responded to a detailed 14-page questionnaire focusing on local life in Newark as well as on the migration experiences of those who undertook the journey and the lives they made for themselves upon arrival. Citizen volunteers were trained to interview their peers, resulting in narratives both data rich and conversational, allowing the listener an opportunity to eavesdrop on history by listening to those who made it.
The original audiocassette tapes for this collection are housed at the Newark Public Library. The recordings have been digitized and indexed through the efforts of the Rutgers University-Newark Center for Migration and the Global City, in partnership with the Graduate Program in American Studies, Dana and Alexander Libraries, Newark Public Library, Newark Museum, New Jersey Historical Society and Randforce Associates. - Principal Collection Place
- Newark, New Jersey
- Related Links
- Newest Americans: Stories About Krueger-Scott Oral Histories
- Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark, by Katie Singer (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2024)
- Preferred Citation
- Krueger-Scott African American Oral History Project, Center for Migration and the Global City, Rutgers University-Newark
- Collection Title
- Queer Newark Oral History Project
- Repository
- Department of History, Rutgers University-Newark
- Collection URL
- https://queer.newark.rutgers.edu/
- Description
-
The Queer Newark Oral History Project (QNOHP) records interviews with LGBTQ Newarkers about their lives, makes their stories accessible to academic and community-based researchers, students, and artists; sponsors innovative programming that bridges the community and campus, spreads awareness of oral history methods, and commemorates the community's elders.
The QNOHP was founded in the summer of 2011 by Darnell Moore, an activist and writer and the first chair of the City of Newark’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Concerns, Beryl Satter, a history professor at Rutgers University-Newark, and Christina Strasburger, the administrator of the Departments of History and African American and African Studies at Rutgers University-Newark.
As of 2024, project staff have recorded approximately 90 interviews with queer and trans Newarkers about their lives. More than half of the interviewees were Black. The Queer Newark Oral History Project website provides access to audio recordings and interview transcripts with robust search capabilities and subject tags. - Principal Collection Place
- Newark, New Jersey
- Collection Title
- Jazz Oral History Project
- Repository
- Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University Libraries
- Description
-
The Jazz Oral History Project audio collection consists of 120 oral histories of seminal pre-Swing Era and Swing Era jazz musicians recorded between 1972 and 1983. The majority of the interviewees were African American.
The JOHP was initiated in 1972 by the Jazz Advisory Panel of the Music Program of the National Endowment for the Arts. Musicians sixty years and older (as well as several younger artists in poor health) were interviewed in depth about their lives and careers. The taped interviews range in length from 5 to 35 hours each and are accompanied by typewritten transcripts. They have been consulted by hundreds of scholars and writers producing articles, books and dissertations, in addition to frequent use by producers of radio and television.
The project was initially administered by the New York-based non-profit service organization Jazz Interactions, and then by the Smithsonian's newly-established jazz program. Administration and archiving of JOHP was turned over to the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University-Newark in 1979. The Institute conducted further interviews as well as editing and correcting transcripts of prior interviews.
The audio and transcripts have been digitized and can be accessed on the Jazz Oral History Project website. - Related Links
- Institute of Jazz Studies