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Library

Mirial Clapp

June 18, 2015

|

Hudson, NY

Song

Recorded by

Elizabeth OuYang

This interview is available in-person only. Please get in touch if you would like to listen.
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Summary:

This oral history interview was conducted with Mirial Clapp in her home on Riverledge Road in Hudson, New York on June 18, 2015. Born in Hudson, ninety-two year old Mirial Clapp has lived in Hudson all her life, except for her college years. With 35 years in education as a first grade teacher and later as a principal of Charles William School, Mirial tells stories of home visits to see absent pupils and offers insights into children growing up in the 1920's to those of today. When Mirial was a child, mom and pop stores, a hat store, and a trolley were on Warren Street with a shoe store, beauty shop, and tobacco store on 5th Street, and groceries were within walking distance. Widowed with no biological children, Mirial remains active in her church, the Hospital Auxiliary, and in the Fort Nightly Club, a now exclusive women's club whose activities are focused on enjoyment and intellectual enlightenment for women.

This interview will be of interest to parents, teachers, and to anyone who wants to know what Hudson was like from 1923 to the present.

Interviewer Bio:
Elizabeth OuYang

Born in Rochester, New York, I am a first generation Asian American civil rights attorney and community advocate. I teach adjunct at Columbia University and New York University. Mirial Clapp is the cousin of Dr. William Petry who was the husband of my Italian godmother, both of whom lived in Rochester and are buried in Cedar Park Cemetery. Oral History Summer School taught me the basics on how to capture the first hand account of people's life histories, newly acquired skills I will apply to collecting stories of Asian American women living with breast cancer.

Additional Info:
Interview language(s):
English
,
Audio quality:
High

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Permissions: 

This interview is hereby made available for research purposes only. For additional uses (radio and other media, music, internet), please click here to inquire about permissions.

Part of this interview may be played in a radio broadcast or podcast.

Oral history is an iterative process. In keeping with oral history values of anti-fixity, interviewees will have an opportunity to add, annotate and reflect upon their lives and interviews in perpetuity. Talking back to the archive is a form of “shared authority.”

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