Oral History: Resources and Archives

Black Voices at Rutgers

Black Voices is an index of African American interviewees who have participated in various oral history projects in Rutgers oral history projects. It provides an easy way to search interview descriptions to find interviews with Black interviewees.

Jazz Oral History Project

This audio collection consists of 120 oral histories of seminal pre-Swing Era and Swing Era jazz musicians recorded between 1972 and 1983. 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 in 1979. The Institute conducted further interviews as well as editing and correcting transcripts of prior interviews. more

Krueger-Scott Oral History Collection   

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. The faculty, staff and graduate students at Rutgers University-Newark who have worked on the collection in collaboration with local cultural institutions are proud to have helped preserve, archive, and make public these remarkable oral narratives that describe an as yet unwritten history of twentieth century African-American life.

New Jersey Medical History Archives and Manuscript Collections

An alphabetical list of the New Jersey medical history archives, oral history transcripts, and the manuscript collections available at the George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences, Special Collections, Rutgers University - Newark Campus.

Queer Newark Oral History Project (QNOHP)

The Queer Newark Oral History Project (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. Bringing together Newark’s LGBTQ activists, high school students, artists, church leaders, professors, administrators and university staff, Moore and Satter convened a series of focused discussions with the goal of developing an initiative to collect and preserve the history of LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming communities in Newark. The term “queer” was chosen for the name of the project to showcase the resilience of an often-invisible population of Newarkers whose lives reflected sexual and gender diversity, whether or not they adopted LGBTQ identities. more

Rutgers-Newark in the 1960s and 1970s Oral History Collection

"The collection consists of cassette recordings of oral history interviews conducted by librarian emeritus Gilbert Cohen. These interviews document the city of Newark and Rutgers University-Newark in the 1960s and 1970s. Sixty people associated with the Rutgers-Newark campus were interviewed including students, faculty, administration, and staff representing a wide spectrum of political beliefs and levels of activism."

The Rutgers Oral History Archives

The Rutgers Oral History Archives records the personal narratives of:

~  Men and women (either New Jersey residents and/or Rutgers University alumni, faculty or staff) who served on the home front and overseas during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and the nation's most recent conflicts

~ People with a story to tell about some aspect of New Jersey's proud history, its towns and cities, its diverse populations, organizations within the Garden State and/or social/cultural movements and events

~ Men and women who helped shape the history of Rutgers University as students, alumni, faculty, staff and in other roles

Social Protest in the 1960s and 1970s: Coeducation: Oral Histories 

"In 1971 Rutgers College administration was left to ensure that all Rutgers College programs and facilities were equal to both sexes. Among the areas addressed were residence halls, fraternities, health services, and athletics. Residence halls were kept either single-sex, or made coed by floor or co-ed by rooms. Most fraternities decided to allow women to join as "little sisters" and a part time gynecologist was added to the staff of the health center. Unfortunately the women's athletic program would not begin until 1974.

Listen to the voices of the first women of Rutgers College as they describe their experiences. After you have listened to the excerpts respond to the questions below. Please note that the audio files are rather large, so they may take a few minutes to load. Be patient and feel free to read the text of the interviews as well."

Women, Education, and Leadership at Rutgers

A collection of video interviews with Rutgers faculty, administrators, etc. that were involved in establishing the field of women's and gender, as well as institutionalizing the dept now called "Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies" at Rutgers - New Brunswick. Interviews were conducted by filmmaker June Cross, who received a commission of her documentary "From the boarding houses to the board rooms: 250 years of women at Rutgers" funded by the Institute for Women's Leadership consortium.