Interview with Janice Quinter

Quinter, Janice ; Gashurov, Irene

Janice (Ebenstein) Quinter attended Harpur College from 1970-1973 and graduated with a Bachelors in Anthropology and a minor in Afro-American Studies. After working at the American Museum of Natural History she was awarded a Master's degree in Anthropology and Certificate in Museum Studies from New York University in 1980. She spent her career as an archivist in research repositories in every borough in New York City, including 24 years at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. Janice is happy to have contributed to increasing human knowledge about many areas of study.

2019-03-29

In Copyright

2019-03-29

Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni

73:58 minutes

3ea0219e-b400-4e4d-b678-101e9a3b750e

Alumni Interviews
Interview with: Janice Quinter
Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 29 March 2019
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(Start of Interview)

JQ: 00:08
My present name is Janice Quinter. That is QUINTER. My unmarried name is Ebenstein EBENSTEIN. I was at Harpur from 1970 to (19)73 for three years as a transfer student living in Jackson. And I am happy to be conducting the interview about my experiences in very fun kind of memories of Harpur College at Binghamton.

IG: 00:39
Very good, very good. So maybe you could tell us where you grew up and what your family background was like, and whether education was encouraged and your family; what your parents did.

JQ: 01:00
My parents were born in the 1910s in New York City. They were born of Jewish parents, my two brothers and myself are Jewish. I have two older brothers. My parents did not attend college. They graduated from high school in New York City, which at that time was like getting at least a community college degree, if not-not more advanced than that. My mother loved the English in English language in foreign languages. So, she learned to articulate the language very carefully and to spell and love literature. She- we lived in a housing project, which I am very proud of actually, in Rockaway Beach called the "Arverne Housing Project." Completed just a few months before I was born, I was born in 1951. My parents moved in-in late 1950. My father was a war veteran and was stationed in Europe and fought in Germany, Luxembourg, and France. My parents met here in New York City in Manhattan. And would married at 19- f- f- knowing to the for five years--my parents were married in 1942. My father sold housewares because his family had done similar kinds of things. And my parents, my father was in it was in the military for about five-five and a half years. He was drafted in 1942, served eleven months war broke out. He married my mother within a short period of time after that, and then went off to war for another four years. And my brother was born in 1943. So, my father so my brother, a short period of time my mother lived with her parents up in Harlem at that time. And my mother worked when she needed to work because we were in a housing project, which was a wonderful place to live in in Rockaway right next to the beach, with many interesting, very nicely behaved students, kids at the time and parents who most of them had had fathers who are war veterans. So, the housing project was built to accommodate the war veterans and their wives and children at the time. So many of the children were my age. My mother worked in a library for a number of years, for 14 years before she retired in 1986. My father retired the same year. We are Jewish, and it was just inculcated in us without ever I do not recall my parents ever telling us to do any homework, to do homework or read or have any particular things that we must we just knew that education is very important. You will wind up going to college and pursuing our interests. I, being the only girl and the kind of the oddball kid had all these unusual interests, like archaeology and anthropology, and American Indian Studies and travel to not the norm kinds of places. So, my parents did not encourage me per se, they just kind of enabled me to do these things. For example, I did not attend my high school graduation because in 1969 from Far Rockaway High School because I had applied for an archaeology field program in Pennsylvania. And as most students across the country complete their high school year in early June, this program was due to begin in late June. So, I opted to not attend the what was the gala for the students.

IG: 04:54
The graduation ceremony.

JQ: 04:56
The prom, end of June. And I had even gotten the dress and earrings and all the other paraphernalia. Nor did I go to my high school graduation my parents did not mind at all because they knew that this was-was that attending the field program in archaeology was far more important to me than going to exercises like that.

IG: 05:15
You know, how did you develop these interests so early on that is quite remarkable. Usually it is, it is something that comes into one's life at a later, at a later point, right? Not-not in high school.

JQ: 05:29
My earliest recollection of becoming interested in archaeology was when I was in grade school and the teacher--I must not could have been a third of fourth grade--the teacher read some story about cavemen and that just intrigued me. My mother bought a book for me. Later on, I guess I was already in junior high school by that time about geology or earth science. So, I devour that in and read the archaeology books that were available in the local library in Rockaway. And I got associated with somebody heading an archaeology program at the Brooklyn Museum in the late 1960s. So, I got involved in that kind of thing. So that by the time I was in junior high school, I already knew that I was going to study archaeology, and I never wavered from that it was my path was set. [laughs] By the time I was perhaps 14 or so. So, I wound up getting a bachelor's in anthropology from Harpur College, SUNY Binghamton. And then I had the opportunity when I was already at Harpur, to go to West Africa, between my junior and senior years. So, I wound up being able to minor, an Afro American Studies.

IG: 06:49
Tremendous-tremendous. So why did you choose Harpur because of its art- you know, why-why- tell us.

JQ: 06:57
I was graduated from high school in June 1969. I was not very good--I should say a competent student in algebra. So, my average was brought down my overall average was brought down because of that. This was before open admissions, which people my age who lived in New York City will know about, my average was half a point too low to be admitted to Hunter College, living in Rockaway Beach, all the colleges were quite far from me. So, Hunter College would have been the only college which I could have gotten to in about an hour or hour, about an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half travel on the subway--all the other colleges would have been not possible to have reached. So, my average was 83.5, I needed 84. So, I was not admitted. I went to New York City Community College in Brooklyn on J Street for my freshman year. And I loved that college. The students were really interesting, involved in everything very open about their feelings and the world around them, the Civil Rights kinds of things going on and different kinds of music. And it was- I was completely happy at that school. But I knew I wanted to study anthropology. So, I took all the regular subjects but not anthropology at New York City Community College. So, I took a year of geology, I was not permitted to take geology in high school because I was not an advanced student what [inaudible] called SP, SP three or SP two.

IG: 06:58
I remember.

JQ: 07:42
So, I could not take most interesting subject of all so I took history and French and literature and a fantastic philosophy course, which still has an impact on me. And gym, which was great, athletic programs. But I knew I did not want to go to that school for two years because I wanted to have a college which had strong academics in my chosen field. So, I got- I knew I wanted to go to a four-year CUNY- SUNY Center, not-not one of the regular colleges. They were all only four because I wanted better academics of the four-

IG: 09:14
What do you mean by SUNY Center?

JQ: 09:17
I am not using the right term. The four major centers-

IG: 09:22
Research centers, or...?

JQ: 09:23
-like Stony Brook Albany, Buffalo, I am sorry, not yet but Buffalo, the four major-

IG: 09:30
I mean, there are there are universities, their universities within the SUNY system, but-

JQ: 09:36
Yes, but for example, not-not-not Geneseo, not Plattsburgh-

IG: 09:40
Right-right.

JQ: 09:40
-those [crosstalk]

IG: 09:40
Because they are the major research universities. So- Right.

JQ: 09:44
That a special term now I am not-not able to recall the term but there were four colleges within the SUNY system of New York State, which were better than the regular local colleges [crosstalk] are-are-are four of them. So, of those Buffalo was for me was-was too far away and too cold. Albany was in another city and I lived in a big city. And Albany was not an interesting city to me was just a government city. Stony Brook had a reputation for being very druggie, which was not my area of wanting to become like that. So left SUNY Binghamton. So, I did not visit SUNY Binghamton. I select, simply selected out of a catalog at from-from Binghamton catalog. The catalog discussed the kinds of professors and when I counted in compared the PhD professor that those professors had PhDs with the other schools, they were far greater number in SUNY Binghamton. So, I chose to go there. And they also had a large number of anthropology courses. So, I simply chose Binghamton out of out of the catalog.

IG: 10:54
So, when you first arrived, what were- what-what year did you arrive in?

JQ: 11:00
I arrived in mid-September 1970. My parents drove me, drove me up with my belongings. There was no- at that time, most of the students lived on campus. But there was no student housing for me. So, my parents and I found a place where I could live for which included three meals a day for seven days a week off campus in the City of Binghamton five miles from the campus for over $21 a week. And then I had a roommate from the Bronx from the high school of the Bronx High School of Science.

IG: 11:32
Right.

JQ: 11:34
So, we roomed together for the year when house it became available on campus. For me then I moved into Dickinson College.

IG: 11:42
So, what were your first impressions of the university?

JQ: 11:47
Lots of mud. [laughs] Construction going on nonstop until the day I left and I think construction is still continuing.

IG: 11:58
Yes-yes, it is.

JQ: 12:02
Very cloudy and rainy. Not very pleasant weather. Fantastic students, excellent professors. Growing up in Rockaway Beach, I saw only a few trees in my life. We were too far away to go into Central Park or other parks outside of Rockaway, although we had done some traveling across the country. So, the fact that I could go to the women's gym walking down a path and sit at a bench and write some letters and do some reading and collect these colorful leaves, which I never knew existed and put them in dictionary, flatten them out and send them to friends. My let- my letters about what I was doing at Harpur College was endearing. I really had never seen colorful trees before. So, all the colors of the reds and the browns and the goldens and just being able to kick the leaves and run around and be able to- be safe because in the, in the late 1960s, 1970 New York City was not safe. So, I could not go out in the evening just be able to see earthworms. I had never seen an earthworm before. Even though I am from-from the outer area. We did not have earthworms in Rockaway, we did not have any earth it was all sand--lots of woods. I think that was my first impression, just the beautiful countryside and with really interesting students and very highly trained, thoughtful, intelligent professors.

IG: 13:41
Do any professors stand out in your mind that made that influenced you that made a particular impact?

JQ: 13:54
Yes, there were a couple, most especially professor Percy Borde [Percival Sebastian Borde], who was involved in the theater department. He taught West African- he was originally from Trinidad and taught West African dance which I took in the-the fall semester of 1970, spring semester 1972. I had never taken or seen dance from any other country in the world. Growing up in Rockaway Beach, we just had one-one regular culture and then a couple of other-other things. So, the fact that I could have the opportunity to take a dance course, in a culture other than my own is what attracted me to the culture. It was not that I was particularly interested in African or Black culture, but it is just different from my own. And anthropologists are curious about people who are not like us. So, I was eager to take that.

IG: 15:02
So, what did you learn about the culture through the dance? You remember?

JQ: 15:07
Yes, I remember quite a bit. The fact that the culture is intrinsic to- that dance is intrinsic to the to the culture, and everything that is important to the West African people, especially the Yoruba, who we focused on and those people also in Liberia, was expressed through the dance. So, we learned many of the dances which Percy Borde and his wife, quite famous dancer, also from Trinidad, Pearl Primus [Pearl Eileen Primus] had collected these dancers who had studied the dances and learn them in West Africa and then brought them back and we were able to learn them. We also learned- we presented our dances at the end of the semester. So, our graduation, so to speak from the class was to cook a West African styled food, wear-wear African clothing to the dance, we learned some words, we learned a whole array of other kinds of things. And then we presented this to the other students on campus.

IG: 16:15
I am very curious about the dances so though this kind of diverges from now a little bit of your recollection of the Harpur, of the Harpur Binghamton experience. But were they, were they in any way invoking deities? Do they have any kind of Shamanic-shamanic underpinning or, I mean, that is- do you remember that about them?

JQ: 16:46
Yes, but-but the answer is negative. They were not shamanistic in that sense. Perhaps. Percy and his wife had not learned those dances, but we were not told about that.

IG: 16:58
I see.

JQ: 16:58
So, they were more involved into there was a welcome dance, which is quite famous at Pearl made [inaudible]. And we learned that, we learned work dances-dances that would have been done in the field. More everyday kind of dances but not-not the religious kinds of things.

IG: 17:14
I see. I see.

JQ: 17:15
We did have a drummer who played the bongo drum quite carefully because the rhythm is very important. So, he competed us in our classes and performances.

IG: 17:25
I know that the drum also has a special role in these dances and it is almost a call and response. Does-does that have that function in the Yoruba dances? Do you remember?

JQ: 17:37
I do not recollect that in the dances. I-I mean, I know about in the music, but I do not recall that in the dances. But I did- through Percy Borde--he did invite a number of students with- to accompany him to West Africa to study during the entire summer.

IG: 17:59
Did you go?

JQ: 18:00
I sure did.

IG: 18:01
Oh, how was that?

JQ: 18:02
So again, my- here I was 21 years old.

IG: 18:05
How fantastic.

JQ: 18:06
I was- all the other students were Black and male and Protestant or Catholic, Christian. So here I am-

IG: 18:16
How wonderful.

JQ: 18:16
-the only girl the only white and the only do little petite skinny-skinny 110-pound gal who went and I did not get sick. I was very proud of that. So, I not only did I see- we were actually there to study the cultures in 44 countries in West Africa, Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana, and Dahomey, which is now called Guinean. So, we spent eight and a half nine weeks there. Percy was there that the entire time we had an interview and then we were selected and I was- I had wanted to participate because I was an anthropology student over the years an opportunity to learn everything, I could possibly soak up with an extraordinary person along with the other students. So, we met and we-we encountered segments of society from every realm of every stratified society. From the Oba has the Kings, the president of Liberia, we-we met him, we met the villagers. The villagers went to a lot of the villages. Many of the people when we were traveling had never- in villages had never seen a white person before. So, they would point to me and say in their local language, white man, white man, so it was quite-quite extraordinary. We studied at two universities had food prepared-prepared specially for us. The professors were extraordinary. So, we had courses in linguistic sociology, art, appreciation, so to speak, then actually doing the art, music, dance, the hist-history, the various problems that-that the societies faced, especially with the populations moving into the cities from the countryside. So, it was all immersive and utterly fantastic. So, I wound up years later in the 1990s, being asked by the head of the archives of the Schomburg Center for Research and black culture, which is the black Research Library of New York Public Library in Harlem, to work in the archives, so wanted to do that for 24 years. And then I retired five years ago from that. So yes, there was a very direct impact upon my worldview, as well as my career. And my, I think my contributions to society because of having met Percy Borde. I also then went the next semester. He- the spring semester, the year I was graduating, so that would have been the spring semester of 1973. He was also teaching a course in Caribbean dance, West Indian dance, which I participated in as well. And he had hoped to have taken a contingent of us with him to Trinidad, where he was from to study Trinidad in culture, but he was not able to get the funding for that. So, it did not quite pan out, but did not stop me. I met several other students whom he had introduced me to, and we together went to Trinidad for carnival that year. So, we were all there for two weeks, between February and March. And I had told my professors in advance that I would be missing two weeks of school my graduating semester, they gave me permission. Then I took I made up the courses in the test when I returned and graduated, luckily successfully. Another professor, who wound up being very influential, and whom I adore as well, is named Owen Lynch, an anthropologist who was brought up here in Flushing, Queens, and taught anthropology, social anthropology and anthropology, about India, Asia-India. I had him for an anthropology religion class, also when I was an upperclassman, and he was quite extraordinary. He loves students. He was very funny, a fantastic professor. And more than that, just fantastic human being very giving very humble, found all kinds of creative, practical ways to help the Indians whom he studied. And he studied the untouchables in the 1960s, and early (19)70s, before they really had any kind of freedom. He left Harpur around the same time I was graduating, oh, I did not want to add in my compliments to him that he was the only professor of all those at Harpur College who actually went to the graduation exercise for us. So, I was able to introduce him to my parents. And I have always remembered that his that is extraordinary love of student- love and appreciation of students by actually going to the graduation exercise on our behalf. He then left Harpur College because he had gotten an invitation to have a chair at NYU anthropology, the anthropology department. After four years, I wound up going to NYU for-for graduate studies. And he became very-very dear friend. I mean, he had been a dear friend before but he became very important to me there especially. So, I was with him during both colleges that he taught and much to my benefit, and I think to his as well, he and I remained very close friends till his death some years ago, and I saw him just a couple of months before he died and-

IG: 18:16
Right-right.

JQ: 24:07
-he and I remained close friends. I mean, my whole family knew him, he came to my wedding. He knew my children, so it was very endearing for all of us.

IG: 24:18
That is tremendous. I mean, that is, that is tremendous. So interesting. How-how, you know, how did your- I mean, you had such a really enlightened privileged view of the world at such an early age. How did that shape sort of your-your, you know, politics about the civil rights movement in the United States?

JQ: 24:59
Well, I-I should add that I came from a very standard background at the time. Rockaway Beach had primarily Jewish working-class families and students.

IG: 25:14
Right.

JQ: 25:15
In both the primary schools as well as up through high school, we had a few black students, a few Black-Black families who lived who went to the same schools that I did. And they were no, and there were some, some Irish Catholic Irish. And that was all, there were no Latin Americans because the law had not changed at that point. So perhaps it was my interest in anthropology, which gave me a broader perspective, but not-not when I was living in Rockaway, because I was just a very normal, ordinary existence. Although I was interested in the Civil War, but that was about before I went to college, but I thought that was the extent of my having any understanding about any other people. And all we studied about other countries in high school was, we were, we were, the United States was in that country to prevent the spread of communism that was repeated in every single class. So, it was certainly not-not in high school. Um, I and I did not really have an interest in Black culture, aside from being able to take Percy Borde's class, but I was between my junior and senior years. So, it did not develop early. But I, but I did meet Africans, there were a couple of Africans who were friends with Percy Borde whom I met and became friends with, in my senior year, still at a college. So, I think having been to West Africa and being exposed to so much, I had no preconceived notions about Africa before I went there. I remember when I arrived, one of the college students in Africa college student who was there not-not one of us American, SUNY, Binghamton students, asked what my notions were about Africa. He asked that I think was like Tarzan people getting a golden round from tree to tree. And I had never thought that I had no thoughts. And I had no preconceived ideas at all, except what the respect that Percy Borde taught us, of Africans having toward other Africans, and especially toward elders, I remember when-when we were there, there were a small group, and there was an older African lady, market lady carrying merchandise in her head. And he made all of us stop, because his elder in society needed to pass so we had to stop so she could go before. So, I think the respect that the Africans have for each other had, especially the women had a very big impact on my being able to see the world in a different light, that American culture was not the only thing which existed and our standards of behavior were certainly not-not the ordinary, although at that time, there was a greater respect for elders and there are now. The- this whole young people generation came about in the mid (19)60s, I would say, yeah, so it was not like I was brought up with it from early childhood-

IG: 28:56
I see.

JQ: 28:57
-onward. But I think I did not quite answer your questions. [crosstalk]

IG: 28:59
I was, I was grasping at something I do not know, I-

JQ: 29:05
Civil rights.

IG: 29:06
-civil rights, civil rights. But you in part, answered this, because you saw that there were a different, a different ways of being different ways of living outside of the United States. And maybe this is not the only viewpoint. I mean, it expanded your- it enlarged. It was an enlarging experience. So, but-but I do not, you know, I mean, did it make you feel more? I mean, were you involved in the Civil Rights movement at all? And did your experience in Africa kind of fuel your belief in the rightness of civil rights, you know in injustice and for African Americans you know, and making it more immediate. I do not I mean-

JQ: 30:13
Okay.

IG: 30:14
-my might have been something very different.

JQ: 30:15
First of all, I was too young to have become actively involved in civil rights, because born in 1951, so it would have been, would have been born in the 1940s to have actively involved in it on a regular basis. So, I do not really know that I became actively involved in civil rights. When I was grad- during-during this time period, or when I was graduated. I think I was just; I-I did not know to become active. I think that that was a thing that I was thinking about this before your arrival--that Harpur College was extraordinary in the sense that it really broadened my perspective in a lot of ways that had never occurred to me before. I found the students at Far Rockaway High School. And we were all from Rockaway, pretty much the same. And I did not find that the conversations were enlightening or interesting at all, until I went to New York City Community College, where students were way ahead of my thinking in terms of just realizing things and understanding things. And then we talk and talk and talk. And then I could- my mind started to expand then. And it expanded a lot more, I think, at Harpur, and I was not ever involved politically, which I think is-is important, the reason I am having difficulty with your question. But at Harpur, in the student union, especially during lunch break, there were students who set up tables about various things, which they were particularly interested in. So, they were tables, and they were people who were belong to- who were communists and socialists. Capitalists did not need a table because most people were capitalist anyhow. So that would not be a new, new kind of conversation. People evolved in the women's movement, just the beginnings of gay and lesbian stuff, especially in dance classes and dance clubs, which I belong to there--not-not modern dance, not-not-

IG: 30:55
Right. Interesting, yeah.

JQ: 32:25
-different kinds of food and what I was, I was used to--American food, but I just, I never experienced it. So, I think that was my enlightenment. Not-not, so it was some of everything all at once. But it was not particularly civil rights. For example, there was, there was a male student who had been in Attica prison before in the 1960s, before my arrival, so like when the Attica riots occurred in 1970. He was then had a table of his own in the student center and handed out literature. So, I think the enlightenment came about all these things, which I had never thought about, because they just did not occur in Rockaway Beach, where I guess.

IG: 33:09
I guess, you know, I would, you know, I, my assumption was that after having gone to Africa and seen the richness of this culture and the- you mentioned, you know, exposure to- to big intellectuals in, you know, academics, and then coming here and seeing how far we need to go, you know, to appreciate- that there was no question about, you know, how deserving African American people are, and-and after, after experiencing that, in Africa. I do not know what I am grasping toward, but it just, you know, because you see these people from a very different vantage point, you see their sort of ancestors and-and here, you know, the, the whole issue is the color of the skin, and you see people here and there, you know, who are accomplished and you know, it just like it becomes you know, I would think that you would, you know, that conclusion that you would draw eyes, what is the whole problem about, you know, why are we struggling? Why-why-why did this happen in the first place, you know, and- does that make sense? I think I took it as a given. That is a given. That is a given.

JQ: 34:39
Right, given because not well- not only does this just make sense, because it is just obvious, very logical. You do not think I needed to realize that [crosstalk] save a copy, for example, in I also did take a course my last semester at Harpur College, Afro American history since 1877--1877 being a cut off with the Reconstruction. So, I wound up doing a term paper about the founding of the of the NAACP, and the Jewish involvement in those early years.

IG: 35:26
I understand. I understand.

JQ: 35:28
I think it-it was just so obvious to me what the solution is that I do not think it required-required [crosstalk] realization.

IG: 35:37
I just remember the United States or I remember even New York, I am, I am a little bit younger than you were. But I remember a very different New York, and that there were racial divides and racial tensions. And so that is, you know, that-that is what I was exposed to. That is what I that is the New York, even the New York, the progressive New York that I grew up in. Um, so-

JQ: 36:10
So, New York was difficult at the time when I was graduated in 1973. New York was a real problem to live in. I lived in Rockaway Beach. So, it was I worked at the American Museum of Natural History for four years right after graduation. So, it would take me between an hour and a quarter an hour and a half to get to work. But Rockway had become very dangerous.

IG: 36:35
Yeah.

JQ: 36:36
So, there was a policeman literally on every train, I had a self-imposed curfew of leaving Manhattan, no later than nine o'clock at night, or I would not get home and live. My father had to meet me at the subway station, my mother had to leave, he had to leave work early. My mother had he picked up my mother from her library job and in Far Rockaway. And then you would have to pick me up from the subway station because I could not walk those four blocks home without getting attacked, which I was with my mother once and then by myself once or at a friend's house in Brooklyn, or stay with my brother overnight. So, New York was-was very difficult at the time. So, I think I was just trying to keep alive, not worry about the civil rights movement, because-

IG: 37:23
I understand I understand.

JQ: 37:25
-it was just, really difficult.

IG: 37:25
You know, I was-

JQ: 37:26
Really difficult.

IG: 37:27
Yeah. So, you know, you-you have this splendid education at Harpur College. You know, what, and you-you gave us a sense of the, actually the politicized and very intellectualized environment just by describing the cafeteria, and, you know, the-the different political groups that would form around tables. Was the Vietnam War, you know, how-how, you know, how dominant a topic, but was it in your life and in your circles at the time?

JQ: 38:21
I recall one of the students who was worried about graduating 1973, because he was not going to be allowed himself to be drafted. So, and he did not want to run, a run up to Canada either. So, he knew that when he was graduated, no longer have a student deferment. And was drafted, he was just going to go to prison, and spend a year or two in prison just doing really donkey work there. So, I think that we were all very much concerned about Vietnam. But there were not a lot of as I recall, there were not a lot of protests about Vietnam there either. There was more involvement in abortion rights for women, and in the women's movement, from my recollection than-than Vietnam. I guess because the students, maybe because by the time (19)72-(19)73, rolled around, things look like there was going like, there was going to be a final an end to the war, which still took a couple of years, but perhaps because especially with the men, they maybe they felt that they were not going to be drafted, or they had this protection that I do not really recall a lot of demonstrations about that. I do recall a bus going to Washington DC to protest about women's rights. That would have been maybe (19)72 or so. (19)71-(19)72.

IG: 39:53
So how was the women's-women's rights movement? Come How did it come into your consciousness? You know, how did it how did it- how did you begin to think about it? I mean, what-what were the first signs? You know, how did you perceive it at the time? What- how did you recognize that it was emerging as a movement? And how did you respond to it? I remember, you know, from a later time, the appearance of the book Our Bodies, Ourselves, and that, to me was kind of a symbol of the movement.

JQ: 40:35
I remember the book Yeah. I was not a very politically active person.

IG: 40:41
Yeah.

JQ: 40:41
But other women and men students that that I knew were. So, I think I got the inklings and the-the thrust of all this from them, even though I did not participate actively myself. And I remember one of the, one of the other dancers turned out to be lesbian, although I do not think that she actually discussed that. So, she was involved in the women's movement from a different point of view. Not from the-the what the expected one. But I think there was more concerned about abortion. That is what I recollect. I said there was. And then I remember, one young student [inaudible] was explaining to a woman student, what abortion is, and the mechanics of all this stuff, and how all that it says, remove the DNC, something like that, I certainly did not know. So, this young fella knew it. So, my parents were not political, my two brothers really are not. So, I did not have politics, in my family, and in my blood, so to speak. So, I think I was a little bit on the periphery of that. I think I was involved in other activities at Harpur College. And that, really, the politics. And the American Indian Movement started around that same time a little bit later, though. But I do not think we had any American Indian students at the time. So that was not direct, as it was for the Attica prisoner, which was quite immediate and left a big impression on me.

IG: 42:18
Why-why did it impress you, The Attica?

JQ: 42:23
Because it was not just something that they were flyers about, or something in a paper, it was immediate, because one of our students was a former prisoner. So, he would present he would give us presentations and talk to us and, and present flyers, but it was more of a personal nature. So that was very impressive.

IG: 42:43
I see. I see. I see.

JQ: 42:45
So again, this was something which, just like I was saying, at Far Rockaway High School, I did not think about any of these things. But when-when you are confronted with a [crosstalk], then it becomes immediate, and then you understand the implications of it.

IG: 42:59
Understand.

JQ: 43:01
We were involved in other things at Harpur, which I knew nothing about. So that left a big impression on me. For example, when I grew up in Rockaway Beach, food was very simple and very much the same. If you wanted to buy tomatoes, for example, they were three little pinkish tomatoes in a piece of cardboard, thin cardboard, couple of cellophane, all the same size, they all were made to fit in that little thing. So, my only knowledge of food was iceberg lettuce, and these pinkish horrible tomatoes, and white bread, and maybe whole wheat bread. And a few other such things like that oatmeal. So, when I got to Harpur, there were so many students who were involved in, in cooking and protesting about other things, for example, in- I think, was 1970, or (19)71, there was the strike of the people who were picking the iceberg lettuce in California, as well as the grapes. So, we students said, “We are not eating that stuff.” So, you cannot serve it to us. And of course, the administration obliges them did not serve us that those kinds of things, students actually had quite a bit of power, which I was very proud of, not that I was instrumental in this, but I had never known that anybody could have power, let alone students gives the big administration. So, I learned about politics through direct action that way, so to speak, not celebrates but-but-but things that were more immediate and affected us on a daily basis. And then in terms of food, there were many kinds of diets which people students could enjoy at Harpur College, there was the-the kosher kitchen, there was a macrobiotic diet, which was all new to me.

IG: 44:52
Oh, that is right.

JQ: 44:53
There was healthful living. So, to my way of thinking, people who lived in the (19)60s and early (19)70s were split into two groups. You can either take the druggie kinds of things in the drop out kind of hippie type of thing. Or you can chop or you could choose the hippie kind of thing, but live healthfully. So, I chose the latter.

IG: 45:15
Well, maybe-maybe, you know, the-the latter, the latter group is kind of the defectors from the druggie crowd because you know, a lot of the macrobiotic adherence were former druggies from-from you know, my knowledge and they came to macrobiotics as a way to get clean. But you know that that is not that is not your experience. But-

JQ: 45:48
Right. I do not know if it Harpur College because the students would have been 18-19-20. So, I do not know if their background was-was drug related, or if they just selected because they had the opportunity to improve their diet yet, which would have been my own background. Since-

IG: 46:09
Yeah.

JQ: 46:09
-grains and non-meat things.

IG: 46:13
Yeah-yeah-yeah.

JQ: 46:13
And the whole wheat stuff was not anything I had ever known about.

IG: 46:18
Right-right.

JQ: 46:19
So that was rather enlightening to me.

IG: 46:21
Yeah.

JQ: 46:22
And be able- being able to have an input with the administration was also rather amazing to me. One of the things I found extraordinary at Harpur, which I am very proud about is that we students actually had a great amount of respect given to us by the administration, and the various academic departments, which enabled us to create courses and even majors, for example, my roommate wanted to- she was one year older than I, she wanted to have a Hebrew-Hebrew studies major. So, she actually put together courses and professors and created a major for herself, which she was the only one, the only Hebrew studies major at the school. So, the only one to have done this, the first one. Now, one could get a Hebrew studies major, but she was able to create this for herself. I actually created- That is remarkable. -two-two courses--one was in ceramics. And the other was in Hermann-Hermann Hesse as literature, I have actually found a professor who was one of my English professors. And I put together a course, years later I-

IG: 47:34
How did you interest this professor to teach exclusively Hermann Hesse class and how did that come into being? How did you, you know, because I mean, administration is, you know, I could imagine so many roadblocks to getting a course approved, it takes forever.

JQ: 47:51
I think he must have taught a course in Mark Twain or something, some-some individual writers’ course before I met him. I remember we read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, which from an academic perspective, and also Huckleberry Finn, with him and he said he was a great academician. I think he was just accustomed to looking at by biographies or single authors who had written a body of work and being able to teach it. And Hermann Hesse was pretty popular in the 1960s, early (19)70s. So, I do not recall any difficulty I just asked him when he said, "Okay."

IG: 48:34
Okay.

JQ: 48:37
And we did it up. [laughs]

IG: 48:39
And so-so it was offered as a Hermann Hesse class.

JQ: 48:43
Yes. Yes.

IG: 48:44
So, there must have been very little red tape, you know, to get this course approved. You know, he just declared it a course. And it became a course.

JQ: 48:54
Yes. Yes. [crosstalk]

IG: 48:54
Is that the way that it worked?

JQ: 48:55
That is my recollection, I do not recall having any red tape really to form--there have been a ceramics course before, but then it was dropped for a number of years. I reintroduced it and it was just do it. That is the Herman-Herman has course I just remember asking the professor and he said, "Alright."

IG: 49:13
Did you put together now a syllabi?

JQ: 49:15
I-I- no. That was- he had done that, then I realized that he was such an advanced professor, he was beyond my ability to be a good student in his- a great students in his course. I was like getting a B or C when I had always gotten the A's and literature in English. So, I realized I was just not an advanced enough student for him.

IG: 49:40
Yeah.

JQ: 49:41
So even though I-I created the course I wound up not taking it with him. I did take the ceramics course however. So, we were taught it was not just like a junior high school kind of shop class. We were actually taught a lot of techniques and it could be could pertain- related to-to archaeology with ceramics that way.

IG: 50:00
And-and in different parts of the world, does it?

JQ: 50:05
No, it was recently a hand on doing it. So, we learned that [crosstalk]. Years later, I spoke to a colleague at- archivist colleague, who worked for many years at Columbia University, this world-renowned university, she had worked there for years and never ever heard in the history of Columbia University, a student was putting together a major or a course. And something was just, we just do it at. It is just-just one of the things that we can do. When I first got there the first semester, so we students, and I was not the originator of this idea, but I certainly participated in it fully. We created a store--we got- we had somebody else had gotten the-the storefront, and we actually cleaned everything out painted it decorated it, created I remember- I used to make change purses and sell them for $1 or something dollar 25. I think I got I made 25 cents profit on it. So, we-we just quick created a store by- for and administered by [crosstalk]. I was as I was not the originator. I did not need to do any of the background work. But I do not I am sure that the administration would have supported it. If-if we had a number of students had also put together an ambulance program, not I- but I guess because of the drugs on campus. They actually put together an ambulance, which try to name [inaudible].

IG: 51:45
Yeah, I remember. It is-

JQ: 51:47
It originated-

IG: 51:48
-still exists.

JQ: 51:49
It originated with us, right. And it still exists all these 50 years later or so.

IG: 51:53
That is, that is, that is great that you know, someone was as respectful of-of your creativity of your ideas and supported you and help you implement these. How did that do you think that confidence in students- how do you think that that affected you in?

JQ: 52:18
Well, I did want to add one thing before I tell you about that. We- there was a new dormitory at SUNY Binghamton called College in the Woods, which was built in about 1972. And they were- the administration initially was going to cut down more trees than we felt was necessary in order to build the dormitory buildings. So, we had one or two little protests, not anything, aggressive, or major. So, we request the administration not chop down as many trees as they did not, they chopped down only the number of trees that they needed to-to construct the buildings and to build the sidewalks. So, we got what we wanted to do. So, I think the way it affected me and I think this also took many years, including my work at the Schomburg Center, when one of my best friends was a communist from Haiti. And everybody endured the man. So, I think I learned a lot about activism from him. So, I, other people consider me an activist these days, I just consider myself just doing what I need to do to help improve society. So, I think having seen that students have a good deal of power. And I did not know anything about power, not power, because I was just a little protected kid from Rockaway that I realized that we could accomplish things, either individually, or as groups did not need to be violent, really, I did not see- they were very few demonstrations. as I recollect at Harpur College, politically. I was not there in May of 19, May of 1970. During the May activities--I was at my other-other college. And indeed, we did not attend class that day. But often, even though we had many students from New York City, who were very bright, it was a not a place where there were lots of demonstrations. So, I think somehow that the administration, I did not know any of the administrators did have a lot of respect for us. And that the ideas were good, solid, not-not negative ideas. They just went along with it also was a new school. I maybe that had something to do with it, that it was founded in the late 1950s. So, there was not a long history of having some kind of tradition or doing things in only one way and having the-the administration be very powerful. And the students, no doubt starting in the mid-1960s, were more active, that would have been the first time they would have been active. So, I think the administration just went along with us because the ideas were positive. And then it took me personally a number of years because I went to graduate school and did other things. It took me a number of years, until the 1990s, when I started to do things as well, not knowing that the ideas probably stemmed from Harpur College, because I had a colleague at the Schomburg Center who was very active politically. So, I think he kind of taught me how I could do things and make-make an impact. So, I am always are quite frequently at my local council men's office with an idea that I would like to see implemented, and some of them, to some extent, have been implemented, as just I do not know, the legislative process very well. So, people- other people have said, "Oh, Janice, you are a political activist. You just do not-do not recognize that in yourself."

IG: 54:08
Right.

JQ: 56:07
But I think it probably did come down that from Harpur, I think, I have been saying this for years, that the Harpur students were absolutely extraordinary, that they were the most selfless group of people I have ever met, that they had real, higher aspirations, to make a better society. And I think this was many students, not just a few of them. So, I think that was a real pattern, which I was able to follow in my own life and say, "Oh, that comes from Harpur," I could see it. I have a friend who is a Harpur student, who now lives in California, a musician. And I have said, "Boy, those Harpur students were just so amazing, they did this and this and this." So, I think, happily, that, not being able to compare it to just what I believe that Harpur students were better than other students in the sense of, of really trying to make a positive impact in the world. Even at years after they graduated, without going through the negativity of alienating their parents and-and doing a lot of things which would have been problematic in society the time for a young person or-or for the parents. So, I think Harpur students were just wonderful. I applaud for them. [laughs]

IG: 56:07
Right-right. That is wonderful. I-I, you know, I think that is such a gift that you have been, that you had been given in really being given sort of a, a wide berth to express herself and to be taken seriously, because I think the, you know, the hardest thing for a young person as they are, you know, becoming an adult and is to have the-the courage of their convictions is to believe in you know, and what-what they are and, and here, you are actually encouraged to become that,

JQ: 58:08
And also, by the professors.

IG: 58:11
Yeah, of course, by the professors by the administration. That is wonderful.

JQ: 58:15
Yeah.

IG: 58:17
So just give us a- you know, an overview of your, you know, your career trajectory.

JQ: 58:26
As mentioned, I was graduated in 1973. Something I do want to add, which was, which is a negative is that I majored in anthropology, just because I love that there was no other reason for it. But as-as I was due to graduate, I entered the office of the chair of the department, Dr. Horowitz [Michael Horowitz]--I do not recall his first name Horowitz. And I asked him his advice. "What do you think I could do with an anthropology degree? What kind of job shall I get? Now that I am graduating going back to New York City." He said, "Well, you always pump gas." And that is all he said. He offered nothing for me at all. I do not think anybody could get away with that these days, actually.

IG: 59:14
No-no.

JQ: 59:15
But it was, it was early 1970s. And I did not have- I had ideas but not a specific goal or how to achieve these. So, I went the route of applying for a job as a secretary. "Can you type?" repeatedly I cannot tell you how many hundreds of times I was asked about that. My first job actually was working in the world for World Trade Center building number one in 1973. Working for Japanese import export firm. I then was able to get a job again as a secretary, working at South Street Seaport Museum because by then I figured out I would like to work in a museum. And then I was very happy to have worked for four years at the American Museum of Natural History, which had nothing to do with my secretarial skills because I applied for several secretarial jobs. But the-the personnel woman who I still remember name Mrs. Lazada, from the Philippines was so taken with the fact that I really wanted to work the museum, I think I must have applied for three jobs there. And I wound up working for the Department of vertebrate paleontology. So that was my geology background came into use there for four years, and I had two fantastic curators so I was able to do a lot of things besides just working for- just typing manuscripts and letters, which are fascinating in the- in it in and of themselves. But I was able to work with a lot, a lot with the fossils, with moving cleaning and moving the Macedon bones and sorting the-the fossil mammals from Australia. And-

IG: 1:00:54
Yeah, I love them- [crosstalk] So interesting. Yeah.

JQ: 1:00:55
-how it helped me to go to use a caliper to measure them and be ascribed with my curator would give me the measurements and I got to know people from all the different scientific departments and a library. I decided I would like to work in a museum professionally. So, I left not quite happily, after four years. So, this was in 1977 and went to New York University where Owen Lynch was my friend and protector. It was a very difficult school because of the head of anthropology department at the time, just the opposite of-of Harpur college. I was graduated in 1980, with a master's in Anthropology and certification Museum Studies. Unfortunately, my- President Reagan had come into power at the time, even though he came from a cultural background being an actor. He did not care about the culturals. So, we cut- he slashed them financially. So, I wound up learning how to do archival work at a small museum on Staten Island, Staten Island, Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences. So, I learned how to become an archivist there. And even that he slashed by three months, that was a CETA program, a CETA training program, CETA and then I got to know people in the field, even though I had never heard of archives before I became one. So, I had to work in a number of research libraries in psychology work for John Jay College of Criminal Justice in its archives and a special program, the municipal archives here in New York City, New York Hospital Corner Medical Center. Psychology-

IG: 1:01:03
Which did you enjoy?

JQ: 1:01:15
And also, something called the historic documents inventory. Well, I love working on Staten Island still my favorite borough, I have never lived there. But I was just enamored of my colleagues and their-their great passion for Staten Island. And I was so enamored of archival work that I did not even know when it was time to go home, I did not know was time to eat lunch, I was just looking at learning from the documents. I worked for Cornell University, but here in New York City, on a statewide project, to survey all the repositories open to the public. All across, it was actually in every county of New York See, I worked in the New York City phase of the project. So, I worked at probably different probably around 200 depositories of all types here in New York City museums, historic societies, just neat places. And then I worked then I got a phone call from the curator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black culture in Harlem to ask me if I would work for her.

IG: 1:03:40
How did it- how do they know of you?

JQ: 1:03:42
Because I had sur-survey those archives [crosstalk] archives as well, because of my interest in Black Studies.

IG: 1:03:48
I see, I see.

JQ: 1:03:49
We all had it. There were five of us work working simultaneously in New York City. So, we had a choice of where we wanted to work. So, some people like banks and corporations, whatnot. I liked all the interesting ethnic place in museums.

IG: 1:04:02
Right-right.

JQ: 1:04:03
So, I worked at the Schomburg Center on this project for about four weeks or so. So, the curator in the archives department got to know me and then called me to ask about work for which I did. So, I spent that time I had two babies and could not afford to pay a babysitter for two, for two children. So, I worked the Schomburg Center from 1990 to 19- until I retired in 2014. Five years ago, three days a week. So, I worked there on hundreds of collections. When I went to the Schomburg Center a couple of months ago, probably in January or so there was an all-new staff in the archives. So, I never met them, but they all knew my name because my name was on hundreds of collections when I go to other repositories on Staten Island or-or have a history of psychiatry archive in New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center. So, Staff never saw me but they know my name because my name is-is on hundreds of collections there as well. So-

IG: 1:05:07
That is wonderful.

JQ: 1:05:07
I feel very proud of [crosstalk]-

IG: 1:05:09
-your imprint.

JQ: 1:05:11
I feel very proud that I, I believe that I have put here on earth to continue people's research to make-make research repositories available to increase human knowledge. So, I-I feel that I was able to do this through my archival work, because those collections are organized for all time process is what we call it for all time. And the reports, the finding aids are there to help researchers. So they are, they are a permanent contribution in many different repositories across the city. And I still continue to donate research-research materials to various libraries, I was just contributing a photo manual 50 years old to a photo photographic archive in Midtown yesterday. And I have got a number of other books and other photo, postcards and other-other research things lined up to me to deliver the next couple of weeks or so.

IG: 1:06:16
What was, what was, you know, the most interesting involving archive, I know that it is an impossible question.

JQ: 1:06:28
I love being on Staten Island. Because everything was brand new to me, all I knew was that there was a ferry and there was a bridge. So, I really loved being immersed in Staten Island history and natural history and learning about the bird count and seeing the journals of the founders from the repository from the 1870s. And learning to read the 19th century handwriting becoming- become quite adept at that just enchanted me. I loved working at the American Museum of Natural History, and then have the opportunity to return some years later. And being the only person who was trusted by the librarians there, as well as all the curators and all the scientific departments. So, they showed me their collect- their archival collections allowed me to write them up to me was really extraordinary. So mineral science, mammalogy and the paleontological collections, anthropology, so many collections took me three months, just to work up the descriptions in that one repository. And now that one repository has a guide of many hundreds of pages, which I completely organized myself. So, I am very proud of that. And I am glad to also be able to, even though I did not know I was going to end up doing this still five years after my retirement, I am still gathering material and-and I have contributed to almost 30 repositories, New York City, donating books in our current material to these various places. So, to me, that is a gift, so that I hope that I will leave the world in a better place of when the way I found it, which is what I think the whole legacy of people who attend or as children attended a wonderful campus my children did in Lake Placid or at Harpur College, that I think those fantastic students really were very serious about wanting to leave the world a better place. And Harpur College, I think, have made students have made tremendous contributions to the world.

IG: 1:08:38
I think so too, I think so from-from those students that I have spoken to certainly, I think we are wrapping up and this fascinating interview. And what I would like to ask as sort of a concluding question is, what-what do you think- what lessons? What were the most important lessons from this period in your life and that you would like to impart to the- you know, the young people who may be listening to this tape, and what do you- what advice do you have to give to them, that has helped you succeed in your, in your chosen profession and in your life?

JQ: 1:09:33
I think I can answer that. answer that in two ways. One is that, especially for liberal arts students, as so many of us were in the 1960s-1970s. We or at least I was able to benefit from Harpur from being a student at Harpur College, because I was, I allowed myself to be exposed in the classroom with adequate classroom in many things, which I never thought about before, or never done before, for example, I took modern dance, modern dance, I belong to the modern dance club. So, we performed at Harpur College and also for a school in Binghamton. So, I have never heard of jazz music before a lot of these things. So, I think to be able to, and I was just actually advising a young woman who just started Stony Brook University last semester about the same kind of thing that if you could just expand your mind, which is a very 1960s Psychedelic term, but one can use it in this way, as well. To allow yourself to take courses and think about things and speak to people about things which you never thought about before. And try not to associate only with the students, some of my fond memories are becoming friends with a man who was twice my age at the time who I worked for, in maintenance. So, I became friends with him and his wife off campus and invited me to their home, which was enchanting, because I probably get a little bit tired of seeing everybody who's exactly your age, that I became friends with a family who lived in the city of Binghamton, and they took me to their house and took me hiking with their children. So, it was very enchanting. So, I think that is important to maintain a perspective of not just everybody who is 21 as you are. But also, to try to take what you have learned at Harpur. And I think Harpur is a great place to be able to do and I hope it still is, of being able to implement programs does not have to be a course or a major, just doing something for somebody else, or something else or another country, which is a lot easier to do now than when I was at school when there were fewer international students. And then being able to take those that the lessons learned, learned there, how to do things, and bring it back to your own home and community and try to do things which will benefit a greater number of people or the earth. I mean, we had to Earth Day 1970. So, I was luckily, [inaudible] I was not there for that it started a few months before I- my arrival. To me, the most important thing that we should accomplish these days is taking care of the earth. There will always be people.

IG: 1:12:35
Yeah.

JQ: 1:12:37
If there are more or fewer people will still always have people, we have got only one Earth. So, to me, the most important thing that we should do is take care of, care of the earth in the best way possible. And get involved in ecological studies and efforts as best as possible. And take lessons from the elders of our native peoples in this hemisphere, not necessarily just in this country, because we have got native peoples all the way from tip of North America all the way to the southern part of South America-

IG: 1:13:13
Yeah.

JQ: 1:13:14
-Patagonia. So, I think we should take the lessons of-of being stewards of the earth, and doing everything we possibly can to embrace the earth not just in a scientific environmental way, which is really an environmental kind of almost like a non-passionate way or satire scientifically. But I feel that we need to embrace the earth. And it is lovely, and we should love it. And more of a poetic sense, not just in a scientific sense. And I think if we keep that kind of thing in mind, then we will make the right decisions.

IG: 1:13:52
Thank you for a beautiful interview. Thank you.

(End of Interview)

2019-03-29

Irene Gashurov

1973

Janice Quinter

Janice (Ebenstein) Quinter attended Harpur College from 1970-1973 and graduated with a Bachelors in Anthropology and a minor in Afro-American Studies. After working at the American Museum of Natural History she was awarded a Master's degree in Anthropology and Certificate in Museum Studies from New York University in 1980. She spent her career as an archivist in research repositories in every borough in New York City, including 24 years at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, of the New York Public Library. Janice is happy to have contributed to increasing human knowledge about many areas of study.

Audio

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