Other descriptive data:
Oral history interview of Martha Engler conducted by Katie Kenneally. Engler describes places she lived in her lifetime, both in Boston and St. Louis, Missouri., and her family’s emigration from Austria in the early twentieth century. She discusses traveling with her mother to central Europe at the outbreak of the First World War and her experience being in the war zone. Engler talks about living in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury as a child. She discusses leisure time, neighborhood diversity, and changes in living conditions. Engler gives her opinion on the reasons for these changes and describes Roxbury’s housing issues during the mid-twentieth century. Engler then discusses moving from Roxbury to South Boston, compares the two neighborhoods in terms of their racial diversity, and shares her views on racial tolerance. Engler talks about her career as a librarian for the South Boston Public Library. She discusses her hours, various positions, responsibilities, and work with children. Engler discusses working in a program called Imagination Club and the ways she tried to get recognition for children’s work via publications like work to Highlights for Children and the Horn Book League. This transcript contains some gaps. Other topics mentioned include South Boston Library, Yugoslavia, Austria-Hungary, St. Louis Missouri, porcelain painters families of Lintz, the English Channel, Rotterdam, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Serbia, Danube, Belgrade, Germany, Second World War, Great Depression, Civil War, Leonard Street Project, City Point Branch of Boston Library, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, Saint Patricks Day, Rosenguide clinic, Maternity leave, women in the workplace, the Hyde School, the Sullivan School, Native American, Italian, Greek, civil service, rent control, tenement buildings, Beacon Hill, Highlights for Children, Horn Book League, Snow White, South Boston Tribune.