Slechta, Mildred [Stevens], 1979 July 24
Abstract
The Slechta interview provides details about living conditions in Highlandtown during the 1930s (people were poor, kids would get scrap coal and bananas from freight cars). She gives a good description of people in the neighborhood being “house conscious” and tells why wooden steps would get turned over (because they had been painted and people didn’t want anyone walking on them). There is also good insight into the pros and cons of being in a union (she lost her job because she didn’t join one).
Dates
- 1979 July 24
Creator
- Tiranoff, Michael (Interviewer, Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research use.
Biographical Note
Mildred Slechta was born on September 1, 1927 in Baltimore to an Irish father and American mother. She grew up in a predominantly Polish-Catholic neighborhood as an Irish-Protestant. Her father died in 1934, so her mother worked at Linqual’s Packing House to make money. She attended School 3230 and Patterson Park High School; she belonged to the United Evangelical Church. She worked as an Executive Secretary at Crown, Cork, and Seal for 20 years and was laid off; she then worked as a Church Office Secretary. She married twice and had one daughter.
Extent
102 Minutes
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
Existence and Location of Originals
Original format: 2 compact cassettes
Physical Description
Biography form, interview notes, tape index, 52 page transcript.
General
Place of Interview: 1421 Broening Highway
Scope and Contents
The Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Oral History Collection contains paper records and audiocassette recordings from 1978 through 1980. The paper records are composed of the files kept on each narrator (the person being interviewed) and the administrative needs of the project. Narrator records contain biography forms, interview notes, and tape indexes for approximately 212 narrators. The interview notes briefly describe the circumstance surrounding the interview(s) session. The tape index includes the name of the narrator, the name of interviewer, the number of tapes, the tape(s) length, and the primary subjects covered. Seventy-nine of the records include transcripts. Transcript length ranges from 8 to 65 pages. Some are single-spaced; others are doubled-spaced. The interviews range from twenty-five minutes to three hours in length. One file, #183, and its accompanying cassette(s) were removed from the collection.
Thirty-two interviewers participated in the project. Typically, the interviews were one-on-one sessions between interviewer and narrator; however, single interviewer and double-narrator situations occurred, as did three group “nostalgia” sessions. Most interviews were prefaced by unrecorded, pre-interview sessions that occurred days before the recorded interview.
Each narrator abstract includes the following information when available: the BNHP interview number; the name of the interviewer; the date of the interview; the place of the interview; the length of the interview; the number of tapes used; the length of the transcript; and the file contents, such as subject index, interview notes, and biography form. The abstracts follow the numerical order of the interview number. However, interview numbers are not consecutive, but site specific. That is to say, any omitted number within a site can be found in another site.
When controversial or outdated terms, especially those referring to race and ethnicity, are mentioned in the abstract, the politically-correct term is used and the term or terms used by the narrator has been placed in parenthetical (“ ”) quotation marks. Specific terms from the interviews and textual uncertainties are often placed in parentheses alone ( ). Maiden names of female narrators are placed in brackets [ ].
Creator
- Tiranoff, Michael (Interviewer, Person)
Repository Details
Part of the H. Furlong Baldwin Library Repository
H. Furlong Baldwin Library
Maryland Center for History and Culture
610 Park Avenue
Baltimore MD 21201 United States
4106853750
specialcollections@mdhistory.org