New London Road/Cleveland Avenue oral histories and research materials
Scope and Content Note
This collection contains 22 oral history interviews providing a wealth of information on history and culture of the New London Road/Cleveland Avenue community in Newark, Delaware. These interviews, collected during two oral history projects by University of Delaware Professor Bernard L. Herman and students from 2004-2006, feature members of the New London Road community and discuss various aspects of life in the predominantly African-American community. The collection contains transcripts of selected interviews created by students as well as research data, recipes, and galley proofs for the book Food Always Brings People Together: recipes, poems, and stories from the New London Road community, Newark, Delaware, written by the University of Delaware Center for Material Culture Studies, under the direction of Professor Herman.
Series I. contains the interviews of several members of the New London Road/Cleveland Avenue neighborhood. They recount their experiences growing up in this Newark, Delaware, African-American community and detail education, community life, sports, church functions, and influential community members such as the Saunders and Wilson families. Also mentioned are significant locations in the area, such as White Clay Creek, Green's Field, The Hollow, and businesses such as the Wagon Wheel and Bell's Funeral Home. The interviews also touch on the topic of race relations in Newark during the mid-20th century and issues of school integration and desegregation.
The series also contains thirteen transcripts of the oral history interviews. One of the interview transcripts, that of Bobby Hubbard, is not accompanied by an audio interview. Abstracts have been provided for 11 of the interviews.
Series II. contains notes, recipes, and photographs related to the 2004 and 2005 projects to document the history of the New London Road community by the University of Delaware Center for Material Culture Studies and Department of Art. The photographs include images of events celebrating the history of the community, lectures, and family photographs and clippings from community members. This series also contains several galley proofs for the 2006 book Food Always Brings People Together: recipes, poems, and stories from the New London Road community, Newark, Delaware. Information contained on a DVD included with the collection has been printed out and placed in folders 1-12. Some of this material was collected and transferred by Katelyn Uehling, a University of Delaware undergraduate who wrote her senior honors thesis on the New London Road community. Building a relationship between a university and its surrounding community : the Community Remembrance Project revisited is cataloged and available in Special Collections.
Digitization of audiocassettes and transcription is an ongoing project and links will be added to the collection as more material becomes available.
Dates
- Creation: 2004-2006
Language of Materials
Materials entirely in English.
Access Restrictions
The collection is open for research.
Terms Governing Use and Reproduction
Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. Please contact Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, http://library.udel.edu/spec/askspec/
Historical Note
In 2004 the Department of Art and the Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware launched the Art As Social Activism Oral History Project. The project involved collecting oral histories from residents of Newark's New London Road Community in order to document the culture and history of the city's African-American community. The material created by the project culminated in the publication of the book People Were Close in 2005, an oral and photographic history of the community.
Building on the work by students and community members, the Center for Material Culture Studies launched the Stories and Food Oral History Project. Students from the American Material Culture Studies Research and Writing Seminar (AMCS 402), under the direction of Bernard L. Herman, Professor of Art History, continued to interview members of the New London Road Community and created transcripts for the interviews. These interviews focused on the foodways of Newark's African-American community from 1880 to the present. Using information gleaned from the oral histories, the students created a collaborative cookbook, entitled Food Always Brings People Together: Recipes, Poems, and Stories from the New London Road Community, published by the University of Delaware's Raven Press in 2006.
In 2011, the interviews with members of the New London Road Community were used by the University of Delaware Department of Art Conservation to create the New London Road Community Walking Tour, a tour of the neighborhood’s main streets, complete with stories about the lives of the people who lived there. The tour starts at bottom of New London Road and ends at St. John AME Church, stopping at important community landmarks and locations in between.
Maguire, Ryan. "UD celebrates New London Road's African American community."UDaily. November 3, 2011. http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/nov/community-celebration-110311.html (accessed November 5, 2013).
Further historical information derived from the collection.
Extent
0.3 linear foot (1 box)
23 audio cassette (1 box)
Abstract
This collection contains 22 oral history interviews providing a wealth of information on history and culture of the New London Road/Cleveland Avenue community in Newark, Delaware. These interviews, collected during two oral history projects by University of Delaware Professor Bernard L. Herman and students from 2004-2006, feature members of the New London Road community and discuss various aspects of life in the predominantly African-American community. The collection contains transcripts of selected interviews created by students as well as research data, recipes, and galley proofs for the book "Food Always Brings People Together: recipes, poems, and stories from the New London Road community, Newark, Delaware," written by the University of Delaware Center for Material Culture Studies, under the direction of Professor Herman.
Source
Transfer from the Center for Material Studies at the University of Delaware, 2008.
Materials Available in Alternative Format
Access streaming audio and transcripts of the oral histories by following the links in the finding aid. The digitized audio files are available in Artstor Public Collections. Transcripts for most recordings can be accessed in the University of Delaware Institutional Repository.
The University Department of Art Conservation New London Road Community Walking Tour is available here.
Shelving Summary
- Box 1: Shelved in SPEC MSS media
- Box 2: Shelved in SPEC MSS manuscript boxes
OCLC Number
Processing
Processed and encoded by Evan Echols, September 2011. Interview summaries provided by Kyle Herring, August 2011.
Subject
- Herman, Bernard L., 1951- (Interviewer, Person)
- Uehling, Katelyn (Person)
- University of Delaware. Center for Material Culture Studies (Organization)
- University of Delaware. Department of Art (Organization)
Genre / Form
- Audio cassette
- Galley proofs
- Interviews
- Oral histories (document genres)
- Recipes
- Research notes
- Transcripts
Geographic
Topical
- African American churches-History--20th century
- African American cooking--History--20th century
- African American fraternal organizations--History--20th century
- African American schools-History--20th century
- African Americans--Delaware--20th century--Interviews
- African Americans--Education--Delaware--History--20th century
- Community Life--Delaware--Newark--History--20th century
- Education--Delaware--Newark--History--20th century
- Food--Social aspects--20th century
- Oral History--Delaware--Newark--20th century
- Segregation--Delaware--Newark--History--20th century
- Title
- Finding aid for New London Road/Cleveland Avenue oral histories and research materials
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
- Date
- 2011 September 23
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the University of Delaware Library Special Collections Repository