Interview with Horace Johnson
IntervieweeInterview with
Horace Johnson
Jamaican, born 1941
Date2000 November 20
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (side 1): 47 Minutes, 20 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 31 Minutes, 49 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hour, 19 Minutes, 10 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 31 Minutes, 49 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hour, 19 Minutes, 10 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
Description(a-d) Audio cassette tape of an interview with Horace Johnson, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on November 20, 2000. (e) Black and white portrait photograph of Horace Johnson.
Topics discussed include Johnson's early work experiences in Jamaica; going to Canada to be with his wife, Fay Clarke; his motivations for coming to Hartford; growing up in St. Ann and his childhood memories; his first impressions of Canada; settling in Hartford; his occupational history; getting involved with the West Indian Social Club; generational gaps and becoming the president of the West Indian Social Club; accomplishments as president of the Social Club; reaching the younger generation; the Caribbean American Society; West Indian work ethic; Rastafarians; the migration of farm workers and the differences in Johnson's experience from others; West Indian culture and heritage; and violence in Jamaica.
2013.26.9a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.9e: photograph
Topics discussed include Johnson's early work experiences in Jamaica; going to Canada to be with his wife, Fay Clarke; his motivations for coming to Hartford; growing up in St. Ann and his childhood memories; his first impressions of Canada; settling in Hartford; his occupational history; getting involved with the West Indian Social Club; generational gaps and becoming the president of the West Indian Social Club; accomplishments as president of the Social Club; reaching the younger generation; the Caribbean American Society; West Indian work ethic; Rastafarians; the migration of farm workers and the differences in Johnson's experience from others; West Indian culture and heritage; and violence in Jamaica.
2013.26.9a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.9e: photograph
Object number2013.26.9a-e
NotesSubject Note: In 1999, the West Indian Social Club of Hartford and the West Indian Foundation asked the Connecticut Historical Society to join them in documenting the lives of the West Indian immigrants who first came to the Hartford area in the 1940s to work on local tobacco farms.What began as a project designed to record the experiences of these early pioneers - mostly men from Jamaica - subsequently grew to include audio and videotaped interviews of men and women, elders and young people, longtime residents and more recent arrivals to the Greater Hartford area, both from Jamaica and the other English-speaking, independent countries in the Caribbean.
The exhibition explored a common thread that seems to link people’s individual stories: the challenge of putting down roots in a new place while maintaining ties with the people, history, and cultural heritage of their homelands in the West Indies.
The exhibition, "Finding a Place, Maintaining Ties: Greater Hartford’s West Indians," was on view at the Connecticut Historical Society from July 2, 2002 – August 31, 2003.
Subject Terms
On View
Not on view
