Showing 381 - 390 of 997 Items
Date: 2010-04-09
Creator: Kenneth 'Ken' M Curtis
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Kenneth Merwin “Ken” Curtis was born on February 8, 1931, in Leeds (Curtis Corner), Maine. He was graduated with a bachelor of science degree from the Maine Maritime Academy and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. In 1959, he earned a law degree from the Portland University School of Law (now the University of Maine School of Law) and opened a private practice. A life-long Democrat, he served as Maine’s secretary of state from 1965-1966 before being elected govern in 1967, an office he held until 1975. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1977-1978 and ambassador to Canada from 1979-1981. From 1986 to 1994 he was president of the Maine Maritime Academy. At the time of this interview, he was senior counsel in the law firm of Curtis Thaxter.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Curtis’s early life and education; running for governor of the state of Maine; the political climate in Maine in the ‘70s; friendships with Ed Muskie and Jimmy Carter; early impressions of George Mitchell; sugar beets as economic development in Maine; working with Mitchell on the Maine Action Plan; ‘big box’ voting in Maine; Curtis’s posture in Brennan’s decision to fill Muskie’s vacated U.S. Senate seat; how little Maine has changed over time.
Date: 2009-06-16
Creator: Charlene Sturbitts
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Charlene Sturbitts was born in Evanston, Illinois, on June 16, 1950, to Mary Jane and William Sturbitts. She grew up in Washington, D.C., where her father was employed on the overt side of the CIA. She attended private schools and Sweet Briar College, where she volunteered for the Muskie presidential primary campaign. After graduating from college, she spent a summer as an intern on the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution and was then hired in the fall by Leon Billings as a researcher for the subcommittee. She attended law school at night at Catholic University while continuing her work preparing drafts for what would become the 1977 Clean Air Amendment, graduating in late 1978. When Senator Muskie left the Senate to become secretary of state, Charlene was asked by George Mitchell to join his staff working on environmental issues. She became his legislative director before leaving after five years to work as a lawyer. At the time of this interview, she was an attorney and advisor in the Office of Legislation and Regulatory Law in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: how Sturbitts became interested in politics; volunteering on the Muskie campaign; first became aware of Mitchell; how she was hired by Mitchell; the difference between working on a committee staff and a personal staff; the first environmental legislation Sturbitts worked on for Mitchell, putting environmental protections into legislation that changed coal power plants over to natural gas; how Mitchell became interested in environmental matters and acid rain, and how that became an issue in his 1982 campaign; positioning Mitchell as the ranking member of a subcommittee; becoming Mitchell’s legislative director and what the job entailed; staff meetings; the chief of staff’s role and the power structure in Mitchell’s office; Mitchell’s leadership style within the office; Mitchell’s position on the Tennessee-Tombigbee project; field hearings; comparing Mitchell and Muskie’s offices; issues that were priorities for Mitchell; Senators Moynihan, Simpson, Stafford, and Bentsen; Dole’s role under the Reagan administration; Mitchell’s relationship with the Reagan administration; Sturbitts’s decision to leave the Senate office; her reaction to Mitchell’s decision to retire; changes Sturbitts has observed on the Hill and in the attitudes of those who work there; Gayle Cory’s role; the attitude toward women on the Hill and how it has evolved over time; Sturbitts’s current job at the Department of Energy; and Mitchell’s contribution to the Senate.
Date: 2008-11-17
Creator: Leon G. Billings
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Leon Billings was born in Helena, Montana, on November 19, 1937. His parents, Harry and Gretchen Billings, were progressive journalists. He was graduated from high school in Helena, Montana, in 1955 and then attended Reed College for one year in Portland, Oregon. He completed his undergraduate studies and took graduate courses toward an M.A. at the University of Montana. Billings worked as a reporter and organizer for farm groups in Montana and California. He met his first wife, Pat, in California; they married in Montana and moved to Washington, D.C., on January 4, 1963. While in Washington, Billings worked for the American Public Power Association for three years as a lobbyist. In March 1966, he accepted a job on the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution on the Public Works Committee. He worked for Sen. Edmund Muskie helping to coordinate work on environmental policy. From 1966 to 1978, he served as Muskie’s chief of staff. He served on the Democratic Platform Committee staff in 1968 and in 1974 was co-chairman of a Democratic National Committee task force on Energy and the Environment. He later served as president of the Edmund S. Muskie Foundation, a tax-exempt foundation endowed with an appropriation from Congress to perpetuate the environmental legacy of Senator Muskie. Leon Billings passed away on November 15, 2016.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Edmund S. Muskie's political career and vice-presidential campaign (1968); Mitchell's 1974 Maine gubernatorial campaign (1974) and his U.S. Senate appointment (1980); environmental legislation; personal comparisons between Muskie and Mitchell and comparisons of their respective administrative offices; and Mitchell's decision to retire from the U.S. Senate.
Date: 2014-09-11
Creator: Melinda Kane
Access: Open access
Date: 2015-01-12
Creator: Wendy Newell Dyer
Access: Open access
Date: 2014-08-21
Creator: Andrew Mead
Access: Open access
Date: 2009-09-29
Creator: Paul Sarbanes
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Paul Sarbanes was born on February 3, 1933 in Salisbury, Maryland. He attended Princeton University and continued his studies at Balliol College of the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, then attended Harvard Law School. He served as a Democrat from Maryland in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and in the U.S. Senate from 1977 to 2007. He was the first Greek American senator and notably co-sponsored the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, which strengthened corporate governance and created a federal oversight board for the accounting industry.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: George Mitchell’s personality; winning back the Senate majority in 1986; the Senate Majority Leader race of 1989; George Mitchell’s departure from the Senate; partisanship; and an anecdote about George Mitchell and Senator John Warner during an “old-style” filibuster.
Date: 2010-04-27
Creator: James 'Jim' R Sasser
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
James R. “Jim” Sasser was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on September 30, 1936. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he was awarded a law degree in 1961, admitted to the Tennessee bar, and became active in the Democratic Party; he managed Albert Gore Sr.’s unsuccessful 1970 campaign. In 1976 he sought election and won a seat in the U.S. Senate; he was reelected to two further terms, serving until 1995. He first met George Mitchell in 1972 when they were both working on Ed Muskie’s presidential primary campaign. He worked with Senator Mitchell on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Senate Budget Committee, which Sasser chaired. In 1995, President Clinton appointed him ambassador to China, where he served until 1999.
Summary
The interview includes discussion of: Budget Committee work; 1990 budget summit; DSCC 1986 (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee); Democratic National Committee; and the 1972 Muskie presidential primary campaign.
- Between 2008 and 2011, the Bowdoin College Library conducted an oral history project to create a collection of spoken recollections and personal impressions from individuals who have known George J. Mitchell in a variety of ways. These oral histories document his life and career from early childhood onward, with particular emphasis on his public service to Maine and to the nation, and they complement his personal papers, which are also held by Bowdoin College. Interviewees include Senator Mitchell's Waterville (Maine) friends and acquaintances; family members; college classmates; Maine legislators; political associates and competitors; campaign supporters; U.S. Senate colleagues and staff members; public agency officials; foreign policy specialists; law practice associates; public policy advocates; board members of various affiliations; and friends. Because oral history recordings are intrinsically informal, spontaneous, and candid, they characterize events and personalities in ways that are otherwise silent in the historical record. In particular, they capture personal knowledge and institutional memory about people, occasions, and processes that are rarely documented elsewhere. Thus, these oral histories provide an invaluable resource in understanding both the recent past and how individuals have played essential roles in shaping the present. TRANSCRIPT GUIDELINES Every attempt has been made to create transcripts that reflect the recorded interviews accurately. Interviewees were given the opportunity to edit their transcripts to correct errors of transcription and fact (often, for example, a recollection might have included a misremembered date or place), or to enhance clarity of expression. Additions and minor deletions or changes are indicated in the transcript by closed brackets ([ ]); more substantive omissions are noted as: [p/o] (i.e. “[phrase omitted]”). ATTRIBUTION These recordings and transcripts are provided for educational use, private study, and research. Brief quotations for academic purposes and other uses that fall within “fair use” (Title 17, United States Code) require proper attribution customary to the discipline or community. All other uses not protected by “fair use,” including derivation, publication, and reproduction, require written permission from Bowdoin College. In citing these interviews, specify the interviewee, interviewer, and interview date following the style found in the example below: George J. Mitchell, interview by Andrea L’Hommedieu, 10 May 2011, George J. Mitchell Oral History Project, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine.
Date: 2019-11-09
Creator: David Dickson
Access: Open access
- David Dickson '76 shares some remarks on his father, David W. D. Dickson, who graduated from Bowdoin in 1941, and his uncle who graduated in 1935. He talks about how the Bowdoin of their era had segregated fraternities that did not allow black students or Jewish students, and details his father’s experience with the emotional tax that such a reality posed. Dickson also talks about the importance of having the safe space of the African-American society that behaved as an “island on a lily-white campus.” He also talks about the former student organization, All Races United (ARU) and how students of marginalized backgrounds as well as “independent mainstream” students could come together in activism. Finally, Dickson shares how his experiences at Bowdoin affected the development of his racial identity.