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Perkins, Willaim, 1979 July 12

 File
Identifier: OH 8297.084

Abstract

The Perkins interview provides information on a wide variety of subjects from the differences in African-American lifestyle in a rural setting to an urban environment to the political and social conditions of African-Americans over several decades in Baltimore City. Topics range from housing, unions and discrimination to shopping, entertainment and Jewish-black relations. Specific details of his experience and attitudes of African-Americans toward WWII as well as the “Don’t buy where you can’t work” Boycott are discussed in this rich and valuable interview.

Dates

  • 1979 July 12

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research use.

Biographical / Historical

William Perkins was born in Pittsburgh in 1917 and raised in the rural outskirts of Pennsylvania. His father William Perkins, Sr. was a coal-miner and his mother, Agnes Perkins, was a housewife. Both parents died when William and his four siblings were young, which resulted in them being raised by their grandmother. His schooling consisted of four years of high school and one and a half years at Lasalle in Chicago, Illinois studying “commercial art.” In 1939, Mr. Perkins married his wife, Mary, and in that year they had their only child, Ann Perkins. In 1943, Mr. Perkins joined the armed services in which he served for two years. After his military service, the Perkins family moved to Baltimore, where Mr. Perkins found work as a carpenter.

Extent

180 Minutes

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Existence and Location of Originals

Original format: 3 compact cassettes

Physical Description

Interview notes, biography form, tape index, one page of handwritten notes and transcript: 26 pages

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

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

Repository Details

Part of the H. Furlong Baldwin Library Repository

Contact:
H. Furlong Baldwin Library
Maryland Center for History and Culture
610 Park Avenue
Baltimore MD 21201 United States
4106853750