Ruth Glasser Puerto Rican Music Oral History Collection
Scope and Contents
The collection is made up of 40 audiocassette tapes containing interviews Glasser conducted with Puerto Rican musicians, people involved in the music industry and relatives as part of the research for her dissertation and subsequent book, My Music is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917-1940, published in 1995 by University of California Press. Highlights include interviews with prominent musicians such as Bobby Capó and Johnny Rodríguez, and their relatives, such as Victoria Hernández, sister to composer Rafael Hernández and owner of Almacenes Hernández in East Harlem, now known as Casa Amadeo, possibly the first Puerto Rican-owned music store in New York City.
Dates
- 1988-1993
Creator
- Glasser, Ruth (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open to researchers through the digital collections portal. Access to the original audiocassette tapes is restricted.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright is held by Centro.
Biographical / Historical
Ruth Glasser was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She is an associate professor-in-residence of Urban and Community Studies at the University of Connecticut. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University and a B.A. in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin. Her research and teaching specializes in United States ethnic and latino history, oral history, urban history, public history and service learning. She has been involved in numerous academic and community-based projects, including several resources for teaching K-12 Latinx history. The oral histories she conducted for her dissertation that formed the basis for her book, My Music is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917-1940 (University of California Press, 1995) form the basis of the collection.
Extent
.30 Cubic Feet
Language of Materials
English
Spanish; Castilian
Metadata Rights Declarations
- License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Creative Commons license.
Abstract
This collection consists of 40 audiocassettes containing interviews with 28 interviewees conducted by Glasser while writing her book/ dissertation, My Music is My Flag. The collection contains interviews of prominent Puerto Rican musicians, composers, music store owners, and their relatives. The interviews date from 1988 to 1993.
Other Finding Aids
English and Spanish bilingual finding aid is available upon request.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Ruth Glasser.
Existence and Location of Copies
The full collection has been digitized and is available through Centro's digital collections portal. See "Digital Material" for access to files.
- Arts, Puerto Rican Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Audiocassettes Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Hispanic American musicians Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Labor unions -- Social aspects Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Music, Puerto Rican Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Musicians -- Puerto Rico Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Underground Music -- Puerto Rico Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Title
- Ruth Glasser Puerto Rican Music Oral History Collection
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- John Binet under the supervision of Pedro Juan Hernández. Spanish translation by Pedro Juan Hernández.
- Date
- April 2005
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 9/13/2022: Brendan Enright added a container list to the Resource Record, creating container instances and associating them with their locations in AV storage. He also linked the items with their digital objects and created a link to the URI for the digital objects page in Centro's Digital Collections. He also added a small number of Subjects to the Collection level description as well as the Metadata Rights Declaration.
Repository Details
Part of the Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora Repository
Silberman Building, Hunter College
2180 Third Ave. Rm. 122
New York New York 10065
centro.library@hunter.cuny.edu
