Introduction to the Oral History Project
ORAL HISTORY OF PARK FOREST - A TEN MINUTE SUCCESS STORY

In 1979, Elizabeth Ohm, head librarian at Park Forest Public Library organized a group to consider doing an Oral History of Park Forest. "OH! Park Forest" won an Award of Merit from the Illinois State Historical Society in 1981.

Park Forest, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its incorporation on February 1, 1999, is one of the most studied suburban communities in the United States. As the first post-war planned community in the United States, it represents one of the country's most energetic, successful and comprehensive efforts to plan a new town. Among the new town initiatives attributed to Park Forest were the Midwest's first mall-type regional shopping center; a comprehensive plan embracing commercial, industrial, and recreational development in addition to dwellings; an industrial park; pioneering social services; and activist citizen self-government.

The Park Forest mystique has been the subject of many regional and national magazine studies as well as a major book by William H. Whyte, The Organization Man (1956), which, because of its use as a college text, still sells 70,000 copies a year. The organizers of the oral history project realized that many pioneers of Park Forest and some of the developers, architects and salesmen were still available to be interviewed.

Funding for the project came from several sources. An Illinois Humanities Council Grant provided more than $19,000 dollars. The Village of Park Forest and a National Endowment for the Humanities matching grant each provided nearly $2,300. There was a cost-share of $156. The library's in-kind cost-share was $34,510. The total project budget on the initial grant was $58,898.

The grant ran from January 1, 1980 to December 31, 1981. The result was 69 taped interviews on 99 audio tapes, 69 transcripts, 13 newspaper feature articles, 13 radio programs recorded on audiotape, a 27 minute videotape, and a public program in September 1981, attended by more than 300 people. A booklet was produced consisting of a reproduction of the 13 newspaper features as printed. This is sold at the library for $2.00 a copy. Proceeds go to the Park Forest Historical Society. It is very popular with all ages of researchers. The transcripts, radio tapes and videotape and copies of the booklets are available for circulation at the Park Forest Public Library. Editing, clean-typing and binding of the transcripts is still going on, slowly, but surely. Thirty transcripts are now bound. The transcripts can be requested through your own library on interlibrary loan.

The oral history tradition is being continued in Park Forest. The Historical Society videotapes some of its program meetings, which are panel discussions on specific areas of Park Forest history. We usually make a back-up audiotape.

I have begun to do interviews and hope to do more as time permits. Along with an Historical Society member who was an experienced interviewer, I did two interviews on videotape, one on the Aqua Center's history, and one with two men who were supervisors of the construction teams who built the original townhouses. Using videotape, we could incorporate photographs of the day and discuss them on camera.

Speech, given by Jane Nicoll February 25, 1989, at the Third Annual South Suburban Cultural History Conference, "A Community Forum on Preserving and Using Cultural Resources."

Edited November 1997

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