The Interview
Just two months after the State Historical Society began a formal oral history program, I [interviewer Dale Treleven] learned from a friend that Mark Stoler was in Madison for a short time. I contacted Stoler and he agreed to be interviewed in the oral history office located on the fourth floor of the Society building. The interview, conducted on June 11, 1974 was the first done for the Society's expanded oral history program.
At the time, I intended to hold a series of interviews with individuals who had been involved with the beginning of Madison's “alternative” radio stations. The plan was not feasible because many of those involved, like Stoler, had moved from Madison. When other tasks grew pressing, I dropped the idea completely. This was in retrospect very regrettable because the “alternative” radio programming which emerged in the 1960's and 1970's was not only a unique phenomenon but part of a larger movement characterized by growing restiveness and resistance to the involvement of the United States government in Viet Nam.
Abstract to the Interview
The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion, and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract below lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
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 discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “Fessler's Contact With 'Up Against the Wall'” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 04:20 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “four minutes, twenty seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “Fessler's Contact With 'Up Against the Wall'” continues until approximately 04:45, at which point discussion of the next topic (“How 'Up Against the Wall' Was Named”) begins.
Notice that in most cases, sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences beneath “Fessler Contact With 'Up Against the Wall'” give further details on what appears on the tape between 04:20 and 04:45.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract when used with the index will help the researcher to locate easily distinct topics and discussion among the many minutes of commentary.
Other Materials
“Underground by Stealth,” by Bob La Brasca in Spread the WORT, [1976], is also part of this collection; filed at call number SC 637.
