Interview
I [interviewer James Cavanaugh] interviewed Hueter for an hour in his hotel room on April 18, 1977, and for an hour in my hotel room on April 19, 1977, in New York City; then, in two visits to his summer home in West Wildwood, New Jersey, I interviewed him for one-and-a-half hours on July 20, 1977, one-and-a-quarter hours on July 22, 1977, and two-and-a-half hours on July 23, 1978.
Hueter had a lot to offer the TWUA Oral History Project. His long tenure as Joint Board manager permitted him to speak authoritatively about TWUA on the local level. During the 1950-52 internal dispute in the Union, he was one of only four vice presidents (one of only two still alive today) who supported the Baldanzi faction. As such, he participated in nearly all of the strategy-planning for that group. During the 1962-64 internal dispute, he supported the Administration group and served, along with the two officers, on that group's strategy committee.
Hueter is very personable and an enthusiastic conversationalist. Unfortunately, his personality was obscured and his enthusiasm waned when the recorder was turned on. During the interview sessions, he was quite cautious in his discussion and at times appeared to contradict himself. This does not, however, diminish the overall value of his interview. On certain subjects his memory was quite vivid and his interpretation of the two internal disputes, while at times slightly off-base or exaggerated, hit on both the key causes and the main strategic approaches.
Abstract
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 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 “Background of Joseph Hueter and His Parents” should locate the place on the second track of side one, tape one, where the voice announces the 00:50 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “Fifty seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “Background of Joseph Hueter and His Parents” continues until approximately 02:40 at which point discussion of the next topic (“Anecdote About His Father's Arrest for Passing Out Union Literature”) begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “Background of Joseph Hueter and His Parents” give further details on what appears on the tape between 00:50 and 02:40.
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 easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
Index
The is a master index for most of the TWUA Oral History Project interviews in the collection-level finding aid.
