Berger, Allen, 1979 June 02
Abstract
The Berger interview provides detailed accounts of living conditions (markets and outhouses) and neighborhood life in East Baltimore with comparison to West Baltimore, in particular. He recounts his parents hunt for employment, children at work and at play (“city springs,” vaudeville shows at the Palace Theatre, picnics along the wharf), and the importance of access to transportation (Riverside Park, Tolchester beach, Betterton beach). There is also some talk of the unifying nature of work for people of different races and ethnicities.
Dates
- 1979 June 02
Creator
- Adams, Janet (Interviewer, Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research use.
Biographical / Historical
Allan Berger was born in Kovno, Lithuania on June 15, 1908 to Jewish parents.Living first in Philadelphia, the narrator and his mother joined his father in Baltimore in 1912. Being somewhat well-off, that narrator recalls that his family had an African American (“black”) maid. Berger’s first job was to wait in line at the public baths and then sell his place in line. He attended Baltimore City College from 1926-1929 and the College of Commerce from 1929-1932. He worked as a post office clerk from 1933-1934 and as an office manager at Berlin & Lewis from 1934-1936. He operated his own dry cleaning business from 1936-1973. He and his wife Bernice, a stenographer, married in 1941 at the home of Rabbi Pilchuk. The two had two children. Raised in an Orthodox home, the narrator is proud of his Jewish identity. He also discusses race relations in terms of his appreciation for the “black plight,” he and his father employment practices, and of his continued discomfort with interracial marriage, especially in light of religious differences.
Extent
60 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, & transcript : 33 pages
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
- Adams, Janet (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