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Ethnic Women of Cleveland Oral History Project from Cleveland Memory
Complete List of Interviews
hyperlinked names are available online:
  • Jennie Bochar
  • Mary Fedak
  • Olga Gaydos
  • Margulia German
  • Julia Hayba & Mary Glovna
  • Ann Hankavich
  • Margaret Henning
  • Ann Cabala Hudak
  • Helen Karpinski
  • Mary Kmetz
  • Marie Kroll
  • Grace Kudukis
  • Milda Lenkauskas
  • Bertha Modrzynski
  • Ilona M. Palasics
  • Helen Pohorence
  • Eleanor Popek
  • Helen Pukach
  • Elsie Rain, Mary Svaty, Ruth Florian, Emily Stanek
  • Ludmila Rigan
  • Genevieve Sandej
  • Anna M. Spodnik
  • Sonja Unger
  • Rena Vysnionis
  • Anna Zaucha
    • Ethnic Women of Cleveland:
    an oral history project
    Capturing the voices of eastern European women as they share the experience of becoming Americans in Cleveland.

    In 1986, Dr. Jeanette Tuve of Cleveland State University conducted a series of interviews with 29 women of eastern European birth or heritage. Many of these conversations were with women who remembered World War II or the Great Depression. The project focused on their experiences building homes and communities in America while retaining their ethnic traditions.

    Originally sponsored by the CSU Women's Comprehensive Program and the History Department, and funded by the George Gund Foundation, Cleveland Memory has now digitized these fascinating interview transcripts and recordings to allow you to read the transcripts online while listening to streaming audio recordings of the interviews.

    Transcripts of all 25 interviews (available in print)

    An excerpt from the final report, by Dr. Jeanette Tuve:
      "...early ethnic women in this country were in fact the first feminists, pragmatic feminists, but untitled as such and deliberately so. These interviews are stories of women of great strength, courage and creativity as they did what they had to do to maintain their families, their churches, their values and traditions while building their communities. Simultaneously, an implicit part of their perceived diffuse responsibilities was retention of traditional male and female role distinctions."

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