These tapes record a press conference conducted in the office of Madison's Mayor Paul Soglin and a speech that Michael Meeropol presented in the Great Hall of the University of Wisconsin's Memorial Union. Meeropol also answered a few questions from the floor following his speech. The press conference is complete on Tape 1; the speech on Tape 2.
The Social Action Collection of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin includes many audio tapes of speeches, meetings, public gatherings, and other events that do not conform to the format of the one-on-one oral history interview. These tapes are among the first to have been abstracted by using the TAPE processing method modified to suit less standard and predictable formats than the structured interview.
The tapes have two tracks: a voice track containing the presentation and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract below lists, in order of presentation, the topics covered on the tapes, and indicates the time-marking at which point each particular segment begins. These time-markings are keyed to a time announcement, heard at five-second intervals, on the second track of the tape.
Thus, the researcher by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped presentation. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the remarks about “Justice Department Report (1956) About Jerome Tardico” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one where the voice announces the 06:15 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “six minutes, fifteen seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the commentary. The discussion on “Justice Department Report (1956) About Jerome Tardico” continues until approximately 10:25, at which point the next topic (“Compares Madison Police Affinity to FBI Files”) begins.
Notice that in many cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the content of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “Justice Department Report (1956) About Jerome Tardico” give further details on what appears on the tape between 06:15 and 10:25.
Statements, questions, and answers that have been transcribed verbatim from the tape to the abstract are given in quotation marks. Other entries in the abstract are either paraphrases or condensed topical statements. At certain points the abstract may give the researcher information about the quality of the sound on the tape, the identity of a speaker, the continuity of a discussion or answer, or other aspects of the recorded presentation as they occur. Information of that kind appears in brackets.
The abstract is designed to provide a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics among the many minutes of presentation.
