Interview with Edwin W. Carty
IntervieweeInterview with
Edwin Carty
(Jamaican, born 1930)
Date2001 May 14
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (side 1): 47 Minutes, 18 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 36 Minutes, 18 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hour, 23 Minutes, 37 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
Object number2013.26.29a-d
DescriptionAudio cassette tape of an interview with Edwin W. Carty, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on May 14, 2001.
Topics discussed include Carty's family and childhood in Jamaica; why he lived with his brother for three years; his father's job as a carpenter and his mother a housewife; getting a job in 1948 at a bakery as a clerk; going to Kingston, Jamaica and joining the police force in 1950; memories of his community; having strict parents; school and church; ideas about America as a rich place; Jamaica's affinity to England and Carty seeing Queen Elizabeth when she visited Jamaica; Carty's brother continuing his career in education; learning about contract farm work in the U.S. and the recruitment process; what the farm worker said about American and their experiences; social activities, such as cricket; his wife's story, Eileen Morgan; his catalyst for migration and marriage; the rarity of migration opportunities in the 1950s; his wife's Cuban brother; Carty's first job as a stock clerk at Royal Typewriter; Eileen Carty's job as a nurse at the Institute of Living; their residential history; real estate discrimination; connections to Cuba; Carty's impressions of America; his employment at Dunham-Bush in West Hartford; the West Indian community and Hartford in the 1950s; the Caribbean American Society; his presidency of the Caribeean American Society; the West Indian Social Club; generational differences and the decline of the Caribbean American Society; other West Indian organizations; raising children in America; migration and generational differences; changes and problems in Jamaica after independence; Carty's role in the West Indian Foundation; home ownership; and an organization of Ex-Jamaican policemen in Hartford.
2013.26.29a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Topics discussed include Carty's family and childhood in Jamaica; why he lived with his brother for three years; his father's job as a carpenter and his mother a housewife; getting a job in 1948 at a bakery as a clerk; going to Kingston, Jamaica and joining the police force in 1950; memories of his community; having strict parents; school and church; ideas about America as a rich place; Jamaica's affinity to England and Carty seeing Queen Elizabeth when she visited Jamaica; Carty's brother continuing his career in education; learning about contract farm work in the U.S. and the recruitment process; what the farm worker said about American and their experiences; social activities, such as cricket; his wife's story, Eileen Morgan; his catalyst for migration and marriage; the rarity of migration opportunities in the 1950s; his wife's Cuban brother; Carty's first job as a stock clerk at Royal Typewriter; Eileen Carty's job as a nurse at the Institute of Living; their residential history; real estate discrimination; connections to Cuba; Carty's impressions of America; his employment at Dunham-Bush in West Hartford; the West Indian community and Hartford in the 1950s; the Caribbean American Society; his presidency of the Caribeean American Society; the West Indian Social Club; generational differences and the decline of the Caribbean American Society; other West Indian organizations; raising children in America; migration and generational differences; changes and problems in Jamaica after independence; Carty's role in the West Indian Foundation; home ownership; and an organization of Ex-Jamaican policemen in Hartford.
2013.26.29a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Label TextListen to interview at http://hdl.handle.net/11134/40002:19641570
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.
Status
Not on view
