Syracuse University’s
Susan Hamovitch Archive
All of the footage — about 150 hours worth — shot in the course of making Without Apology has been acquired by Syracuse University, and will be made available to students and scholars interested in the history of developmental disability. Dozens of interviews with staff and residents of Letchworth Village, speeches and interviews with scholars and experts in the field and more are in these tapes.
[archiving still in progress. Check with the University library for current status under the name, Susan Hamovitch Archive]
It might not be surprising that over 150 hours of videotape were shot for the making of Without Apology. It was a personal documentary, but like a filmmaker possessed, I gathered material on subjects well outside my family. I gathered interviews of everyone connected with Letchworth Village, the institution where my brother lived for more than 30 years — which included interviews with staff, administrators and many former residents I have reams of film of a photo series shot by Bourke White, taken when Letchworth was a working farm,
I attended conferences and ilmed keynote speeches of well known experts in the field, See Wolf Wolfensberger or Gunnar Dybwad. There’s an hour long interview with Stephen Jay Gould! In short there’s material on a whole host of topics that spun out from the story of one boy with autism who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s
With so much extraneous to my film material, I approached Syracuse University, the repository of a comprehensive library — as well as a center for the study — of disability. And they didn’t waste any time in saying “yes” to my offer to donate this collection of what, in my opinion, consists of historically fascinating material.
Named The Susan Hamovitch Archive, it will be accessible to the public at large, for research purposes only I should add.
Please note: It’s not up and running yet. the process of archiving and cataloguing the materials is still in progress, but stay tuned here for updates on when it will be available to the public and how to access it.
