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Oral History Collection

The Nicki Newman Tanner

Oral History Collection

As part of JWA’s mission to expand the narrative of Jewish history, we have collected and recorded hundreds of interviews with leaders, activists, and community members across the United States, documenting their encounters with major events and movements of the 20th and 21st centuries and the many ways that gender, class, place, and religious and ethnic identities have shaped women’s lives. With generous support from Nicki Newman Tanner,  Mass Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, we are proud to make these interviews and transcripts available to the public. All entries include transcripts; audio or video recordings are also available where narrator permissions allow. 

More about the collection

Bess Arick

Project
Women Whose Lives Span the Century

These interviews document Bess Arick’s life from her upbringing in a Russian Jewish immigrant family on a Massachusetts farm through experiences of antisemitism, limited educational opportunity, marriage, career as a medical journal editor, and family loss.

Florence Gross

Project
Women Whose Lives Span the Century

Rachel Alexander interviewed Florence Gross on July 11, 1997, in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Whose Lives Spanned The Century Oral History Project. Gross shares her family history, childhood memories, career path as a social worker, marriages, volunteering experiences, and her lifelong connection to Temple Israel, reflecting on the role of Judaism in her life.

Theresa J. Morse

Project
Women Whose Lives Span the Century

On February 16, 1993, Emily Mehlman interviewed Theresa Morse in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in an interview that traces Morse’s upbringing in a German-Jewish family, her education at Barnard and Radcliffe, her World War II service, and her decades of leadership in public housing, family services, philanthropy, and Jewish communal life in Greater Boston.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Oral History Collection." (Viewed on June 15, 2026) <https://qa.jwa.org/oralhistories>.