Maurice Richter, '53 (BardCorps)
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Interviewee Role
Alumni/ae/x
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Class Year
1953
Other Program
Combined Sociology and Psychology Major
Interviewer
Helene Tieger, '85
Description
Maurice Richter remembers that his interest in sociology and psychology led him to create a double major, and the support he received from Professors Gerry DeGre and Joe Preker. He discusses the expansion of the college through the gift of the Zabriskie estate and sneaking down to the Hudson through Blithewood before it was part of the College. He recalls the influence of Heinz Bertelsmann, Adolf Sturmthal, and also of Felix Hirsch who often talked of the Great Inflation in Germany in 1923. After receiving an award from President Case, Maurice recounts the photographic process required to duplicate this for his parents in the days before photocopying. He also remembers that the campus emptied out to Manhattan on the weekends; the great social divide between students with cars and those without; working for the "dynamic" Margaret Mead and the US Senate during Field Periods; the financial precariousness of Bard during the 1950s; and his endorsement of Bard's evolution through the present.
Keywords
Gerard DeGre, Jospeh Preker, James Case, Blithewood, Cruger Village, Heinz Bertelsmann, Felix Hirsch, Adolf Sturmthal, Kingston, Rhinebeck, Margaret Mead, American Museum of Natural History
Location
Stevenson Library
Interview Date
10-22-2011
Interview Duration
14:43
Recommended Citation
Richter, Maurice, "Maurice Richter, '53 (BardCorps)" (2011). BardCorps -- All Oral Histories. 20.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/oral_hist/20
Rights Management
The use of any image or audio from the Bard College Archives without permission is prohibited.
Significant Quote
"In those days we had what we called the Field Period...I worked for the anthropologist Margaret Mead in her office in the American Museum of Natural History."