Interview with Florence Kiser Wollaston
IntervieweeInterview with
Florence Kiser Wollaston
American, 1931 - 2025
Date2000 November 20
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (side 1): 44 Minutes, 13 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 27 Minutes, 6 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hour, 11 Minutes, 19 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 27 Minutes, 6 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hour, 11 Minutes, 19 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
Description(a-c) Audio cassette tape of an interview with Florence Kiser Wollaston, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on November 20, 2000. (d) Black and white portrait photograph of Florence Kiser Wollaston.
Topics discussed include Wollaston's early memories of Hartford; memories of the Bellevue Square Housing Project in the early 1950s; her parent's migration from the southern United States; her siblings; recreational activities at Bellevue Square; working in the tobacco fields during the summers; encountering West Indians; memories of the West Indian farm workers in the 1940s; a description of the work in a tobacco field; her parent's deaths; marriage; socializing at the West Indian Social Club; comparisons between West Indian and African American men; helping her in-laws; entertaining West Indian guests, dignitaries, and friends; personalities at the West Indian Social Club; personalities of the Ladies Auxiliary; Ladies Auxiliary activities at the Social Club; the men's activities and the women's functions; changes at the West Indian Social Club; being West Indian versus being Black; Black powerlessness and empowerment in Hartford in relation to West Indians; and changes at Bellevue Square.
2013.26.10a-c consists of two sides and the tape.
2013.26.10d: photograph
Topics discussed include Wollaston's early memories of Hartford; memories of the Bellevue Square Housing Project in the early 1950s; her parent's migration from the southern United States; her siblings; recreational activities at Bellevue Square; working in the tobacco fields during the summers; encountering West Indians; memories of the West Indian farm workers in the 1940s; a description of the work in a tobacco field; her parent's deaths; marriage; socializing at the West Indian Social Club; comparisons between West Indian and African American men; helping her in-laws; entertaining West Indian guests, dignitaries, and friends; personalities at the West Indian Social Club; personalities of the Ladies Auxiliary; Ladies Auxiliary activities at the Social Club; the men's activities and the women's functions; changes at the West Indian Social Club; being West Indian versus being Black; Black powerlessness and empowerment in Hartford in relation to West Indians; and changes at Bellevue Square.
2013.26.10a-c consists of two sides and the tape.
2013.26.10d: photograph
Object number2013.26.10a-d
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
