PENNSBURG PA – If you or a member of your family ever worked for Knoll, the East Greenville furniture manufacturer, the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center, 105 Seminary St., hopes to collect your memories.
Members of the Schwenkfelder staff and volunteers will spend time Saturday and Sunday (Nov. 23-24, 2024) interviewing people who worked for, or whose family members were employed by, Knoll. It’s part of a “continuing effort to build the (library’s) local archival collection,” the Schwenkfelder says in a recent media release.
Interviewers are looking to gather stories, fond recollections, and reminiscences to enhance the library’s available research on the company. Interviews will last about 30 minutes, and as oral histories will be recorded for posterity.
If you’d like to participate, or have a question about the project, send an e-mail to info@schwenkfelder.org.
Many area residents and visitors are familiar with the center’s acclaimed museum and exhibits, which are free to attend and open to the public. They’re likely also know about or have participated in some of its weekly and monthly programs, or its annual Penn Dry Goods Market or its Pennsylvania German Christmas observance.
Fewer may be aware that the library is an established and acknowledged regional resource for the history from the early 1700s in the Upper Perkiomen Valley. Conducting research in the library also is free. For more information call 215-679-3103.
Oral History Interviews and Their Value
The national Oral History Association, headquartered at Baylor University in Waco TX, notes that the value of oral histories “lies largely in the way it helps to place people’s experiences within a larger social and historical context.”
Interviews serve several purposes, the association says. They become records for documenting past events. They reflect individual or collective experiences, and they provide greater “understandings of the ways that history is constructed.”
Because they rely on personal memories, the association adds, oral histories capture “recollections about the past filtered through the lens of a changing personal and social context.”
Photo by Travels With The Post
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