The award-winning GlassBook Project was initially created as a medium for exposing students to the effects of trauma, and giving them the tools to promote healing through the creation of books made of glass.
For the tenth incarnation of GlassBooks, founder Nick Kline partnered with Newark artist Adrienne Wheeler and Newest Americans to bring the narratives of the Krueger-Scott African American oral history collection to the students of his Book Arts class. The collection features over 100 interviews gathered in the late 1990s from Newark citizens who moved to the city between 1910-1970. Working with a selection of six narratives, Kline, Wheeler and the students created books made of glass, inspired by the remarkable life stories related by the narrators of the collection.
“Provisions” explores the effects of the seismic change the Great Migration brought to individuals, their families, the City of Newark and the country at large. The strength, fragility and weight of the glass personify the emotional impact of this massive historical event at the human level.
The Provisions Collection
Oral History: Katheryn Bethea; Artist: Andrea Cassar; Title: Onions
Oral History: Katheryn Bethea; Artist: Matthew Cole; Title: Katheryn Buller Bethea’s Newark
Oral History: Katheryn Bethea; Artist: Danielle Cooper; Title: The Gold Brick
Oral History: Alvin Conyers; Artist: Alexis Franklin, Rutgers Newark; Title: Celebrants
Oral History: Alvin Conyers; Artist: Natalie Guerrero; Title: Scripture
Oral History: Alvin Conyers; Artist: Daniel Jamroz; Title: Exuberance
Oral History: Pauline Mathis; Artist: Jonas Larbi; Title: Why
Oral History: Pauline Mathis; Artist: Beatrice Loiseau; Title: Switchboard
Oral History: Zaundria Mapson May; Artist: Lamont Royster; Title: Spirit Restored
Oral History: Zaundria Mapson May; Artist: Ramon Salcedo; Title: Colors
Oral History: Hortense Williams Powell; Artist: Anya Semenova; Title: Memory Case
Hortense Williams Powell; Artist: Sean Sena; Title: Newspaper
Oral History: Hortense Williams Powell; Artist: Mark Spelker; Title: The Scholarship
Oral History: Isaac Thomas; Artist: Nick Kline; Title: Nickel Piece Of Ice Melting
Oral History: Isaac Thomas; Artist: Paula Neves; Title: Accounts
Oral History: Elizabeth Moore Wheeler; Artist: Adrienne Wheeler; Title: My Mother
Oral History: Elizabeth Moore Wheeler; Artist: Adrienne Wheeler & Nick Kline; Title: Our Children’s Wedding
The sweeping scope of the Great Migration and its effects on the city of Newark can be seen in the range of miles and decades spanned by the Krueger-Scott narrators:
Isaac Thomas was born in Alabama, the son of a homemaker and a coal miner. By 1959 he was in Newark, graduating from Rutgers with a degree in Business Administration . . .
Isaac Thomas
0:19
Hortense Williams Powell, a native of Newark, was born in 1930 and vividly describes the racially segregated job market in the city she came up in . . .
Hortense Williams Powell
0:46
Katheryn Bethea was born in Cleveland, Ohio to parents who had migrated to that northern city from Alabama. She moved to Newark to live with her grandmother and uncle in 1927. She was a seamstress…
A Shoebox to Hold Her, a poem by Danielle Cooper
1:26
The students who made the “Provisions” books, many of whom come from immigrant backgrounds, found personal resonance with themes from the narrators’ lives that echo across the migrant experience. Leaving home, uncertain journeys, small, intimate details of the clothes worn and the food eaten on the way – these common themes bridge the gap between migrant groups, throwing into sharp relief the whirling churn of humanity arriving in a Global City. Stories of the evolving cityscape as told in the oral histories narrate the landscape the students walk each day on their way to class, offering a window into a distant city that bears little resemblance to the one they know today.
Oral History: Hortense Williams Powell; Artist: Mark Spelker; Title: The Scholarship
Past Collections
After Domestic Violence Collection: “Are You?” by Sonya Ahmed
Self Injury: “Untitled” by Joseph Tutalo
After Domestic Violence Collection: “Stories We Tell Our Children” by Eleonora Luongo
Self Injury Collection: “Untitled” by Samantha Glovin
After Domestic Violence Collection: “Why” by Kristen Palatella
Self Injury Collection: “Untitled” by Sophia Sobers
After Domestic Violence Collection: “Exposed” by Barbara Borges
After Domestic Violence Collection: “Destroy My Pain” by Alicia Velicky
Self Injury Collection: “The Tool” by Theresa Conception
Self Injury Collection: “Untitled” by Eleonora Luongo
Special thanks to the Krueger-Scott African American Oral History Collection, created by Catherine Lennix-Hooker with Giles R. Wright II, Clement Alexander Price, and the collective wisdom of volunteers from Bethany Baptist Church.
The Provisions books were created at and with the support of GlassRoots, Newark, NJ. GlassRoots artists James Blake, Lead Kilnforming Instructor, and Kate Dowd, Assistant Program Director and Lead Flameshop Instructor, provided instruction in the glass arts and support to GlassBook artists in the design and fabrication of their books.
For more about the Krueger-Scott collection check out Samantha Boardman’s article in Vandal and her short documentary on YouTube.
To explore the Krueger-Scott African American Oral History collection visit the archive website.
Curious about what else Newest Americans is doing with the Krueger-Scott collection? Click here.
