Most readers probably know something about the time Ella Fitzgerald spent here in Hudson at the New York State Training School for Girls, either from the Prison Public Memory Project or from David McDonald's play Ella the Ungovernable.
 |
| Photo: Carl Van Vechten | Library of Congress |
Recently, a reader told me about a podcast that explores the context of Fitzgerald's detention here in Hudson. The precis of the podcast offers this information:
In the 1930s, at a women's reformatory in upstate New York, an upstart social scientist made a study that launched the field of social network analysis. It was revolutionary, but missed something happening at the same time at the same school, something we know now in part from the story of the school's most famous inmate: Ella Fitzgerald.
That "women's reformatory in upstate New York" is, of course, the Girls' Training School, located where the Hudson Correctional Facility is now. The podcast from The Last Archive is called "Acting Out," and it can be heard here. It is fascinating, well researched, and well worth the 48 minutes it takes to listen to it.
COPYRIGHT 2023 CAROLE OSTERINK
Carole, thank you for sharing the link to this podcast I also found it to be well worth the time to listen. In the late sixties I spent many hours in the auditorium of the NYS Training School rehearsing shows with the Claverack Players Community Theater Group
ReplyDelete