Helene and Stanley Schlesinger Oral History
Scope and Contents
Both Helene and Stanley Schlesinger sat for this interview, however, most answers were given by Helene. Helene talks about moving to Kew Gardens, attending Queens College in 1948 and earning her undergraduate degree in psychology and a master's degree in education, and a second master’s in special education from Adelphi University; attending the 1939 New York World's Fair as a child and recalling the trains coming in from Kew Gardens, the parachute jump, the Billy Rose Aquacade Swim Show, and the Charlie McCarthy Show, the Russian pavilion, and the General Motors and RCA exhibits; her time as a Queens College student, the campus buildings, the tuition, the experience of registering for courses, her psychology and graduate coursework; her experiences, starting in 1971 at P.S. 219, as a reading teacher, 3rd, 5th and 6th grade teacher, and Special Education teacher; her memories of African American children bused in from South Jamaica Queens and her opinions about the practice of busing; moving her family to Kew Gardens for because it was integrated, and her children’s schools P.S. 164, Campbell Junior High School, and John Bowne High School where her husband was on the board; teaching immigrants from Afghanistan, Russia, and South America in her 5th grade classroom and pairing non-English-speaking students with bilingual students who would help them in the classroom.
Dates
- 2011-02-16
Creator
- Hartman, Tess (Interviewer, Person)
Access
This oral history is open for research. Media files and transcript can be viewed and/or requested through the Queens Memory Project on Aviary: https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/31111. For help using the site, contact QC.Archives@qc.cuny.edu.
Conditions Governing Use
Interview shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Users are free to share or adapt the material for non-commercial purposes, as long as they meet the terms of the license. See license details at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.
Biographical / Historical
Helene Schlesinger is a retired elementary and special education teacher who worked in Queens at P.S. 219, and Stanley Schlesinger was a CPA. They have been married for 66 years and lived for most of their lives in Kew Gardens, but currently reside in Philadelphia.
Extent
1 Digital Files ; Duration: 01:17:59
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Helene and Stanley Schlesinger were interviewed in their home in Kew Garden Hills, Flushing, in February 2011 by Tess Hartman for the Queens Memory Project.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated to Queens College and Queens Public Library by Tess Hartman, Helene Schlesinger, and Stanley Schlesinger in February, 2011.
Physical Description
One MP3 file totaling 1 hour and 18 minutes.
Processing Information
Oral history conducted as part of the Queens Memory Project (http://queensmemory.org), a collaborative program of the Queens Public Library and Queens College to collect stories, images, and other evidence of life in the borough of Queens.
Creator
- Hartman, Tess (Interviewer, Person)
- Schlesinger, Helene (Interviewee, Person)
- Schlesinger, Stanley (Interviewee, Person)
- Author
- Caitlin Colban-Waldron
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Queens College (New York, N.Y.) Special Collections and Archives Repository
Queens College Library, CUNY
Benjamin Rosenthal Library RO317
65-30 Kissena Boulevard
Flushing 11367 USA us
QC.Archives@qc.cuny.edu