This oral history interview is an intimate conversation between two people, both of whom have generously agreed to share this recording with Oral History Summer School, and with you. Please listen in the spirit with which this was shared.
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Rick Scalera is native and former mayor of Hudson. In this interview Scalera discusses growing up in Hudson, working as a mason and correctional officer as well as his early political career. Scalera elaborates on attending school in Hudson and how that compared to attending school in the surrounding county. Additionally, Scalera describes his brief time in the military, learning masonry by working as a masons helper and his decision to become a corrections officer. Scalera, details his experience teaching masonry to incarcerated people at the local prison as well as challenges and rewards of working as a corrections officer. In addition, Scalera discusses how he got involved in politics and the challenges he faced as Mayor and how he overcame them. The interview concludes with Scalera’s perspective on the current situation in Hudson and his outlook for the future of the city.
The interview may be of interest to those that want to learn about youth life in the 1950’s and 1960’s, labor, economic and social transformation, working in corrections or electoral politics in Hudson
Chance Grable is a historian of the twentieth century United States. Currently, he is a undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Chance is interested in using oral history to understand popular history and to engage narrators in a deep engagement with memory.
Oral history is an iterative process. In keeping with oral history values of anti-fixity, interviewees will have an opportunity to add, annotate and reflect upon their lives and interviews in perpetuity. Talking back to the archive is a form of “shared authority.”