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In the 1968 New Year's Honours de Berg was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for "service to the collection of archival material".<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Hazel Estelle de Berg|url=https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1085328|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-08-28|website=Australian Honours Search Facility, Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1968-01-01 |title=Diplomat who defied Red Guards knighted |pages=7 |work=The Canberra Times |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106989652 |access-date=2023-01-06}}</ref>
In the 1968 New Year's Honours de Berg was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for "service to the collection of archival material".<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Hazel Estelle de Berg|url=https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1085328|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-08-28|website=Australian Honours Search Facility, Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1968-01-01 |title=Diplomat who defied Red Guards knighted |pages=7 |work=The Canberra Times |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106989652 |access-date=2023-01-06}}</ref>

== Reception ==
David Foster, in his book ''Self Portraits'' which is based on the recordings, notes that in 1970, bibliographer and librarian Pauline Fanning, in her commentary on the collection, remarked that de Berg was not herself a scholar of literature so "is not sufficiently well informed to know what questions to ask, and furthermore, she has so edited the tapes as to eliminate the questions she asks. This results in the recording being in monologue form, with no indication as to why or how the person interviewed was prompted to speak on a particular topic." In response Foster argues that de Berg's "idiosyncratic approach in fact creates rather fewer difficulties with writers than with politicians [...] since writers may be judged by what they have said and written, and perhaps ought to be, it does little harm, I believe, to let them ramble on to their hearts' content, as a great many of them did."<ref>{{Cite book | author1=Foster, David | author2=National Library of Australia | title=Self portraits / selected and introduced by David Foster | publisher=National Library of Australia | isbn=978-0-642-10513-4}}</ref>


== Personal ==
== Personal ==

Revision as of 05:56, 7 January 2023

Hazel de Berg
MBE
Born
Hazel Estelle de Berg

21 March 1913
Deniliquin, New South Wales, Australia
Died3 February 1984 (aged 70)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
EducationMethodist Ladies College
OccupationOral Historian
Known forInterviews with writers, historians, artist, musicians and scientists.

Hazel Estelle de Berg MBE (21 March 1913 – 3 February 1984) was a pioneer of oral history in Australia. Between 1957 and 1984[1] she produced 1291 hour-long sound tape reels of interviews with writers, historians, artists, musicians and scientists.

Biography

Hazel Estelle de Berg was born on 21 March 1913 in Deniliquin, New South Wales to George Robert Holland and Ann Holland (née McIntosh).[2] Her father was a Methodist minister, whose pastoral work led to the family moving around country New South Wales during de Berg's childhood, living in Cessnock[3] Cobar[3] Orange[4] and Kempsey[5] In 1928 the family moved to Sydney, where de Berg enrolled at Methodist Ladies’ College, Burwood and completed her Leaving certificate in 1932.[2] She then trained as a photographer trained as a photographer at Paramount Studios and later worked in the studio of Noel Rubie,[6] while continuing to live at home with her parents.[2]

Career

While undertaking voluntary work for the Blind Book Society in 1957,[2] de Berg was asked by historian Frank Clune to record a book for a blind friend.[7] Using an Australian-made Nova reel-to-reel tape machine,[8][9] she recorded Dame Mary Gilmour's Old Day, Old Ways. She subsequently recorded an interview with Dame Mary for background information and the recording became the first of the de Berg oral history collection, held at the National Library of Australia in Canberra.[10] By 1961 she had tapes of all sixty-eight living recognised Australian poets reading their own verse.[11] In a 1973 unpublished paper de Berg wrote that;

"I have come a little way along the road a blind man showed me — a road I hope someone else treads in the centuries ahead — but I have come a long way in love, and perhaps knowledge, for the people who express our country."[1]

De Berg did not intrude her own voice in any of her recordings nor her questions, but let her subject speak for themselves.[12] She also photographed each of her interviewees,[13] funding that and the recording out of her own pocket until in 1960 was granted £100 from the Commonwealth Literary Fund after presenting her work at the Adelaide Festival,[11] and for donating the tapes to the National Library of Australia was provided a further Commonwealth Literary Grant by Sir Harold White, the Federal Parliamentary Librarian and National Librarian.[12] The library funded the transcriptions and from 1972 paid her an annual grant.[2] By 1973 she had made 750 recordings and the tapes were being converted to phonograph records for preservation.[14]

In the 1968 New Year's Honours de Berg was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for "service to the collection of archival material".[15][16]

Reception

David Foster, in his book Self Portraits which is based on the recordings, notes that in 1970, bibliographer and librarian Pauline Fanning, in her commentary on the collection, remarked that de Berg was not herself a scholar of literature so "is not sufficiently well informed to know what questions to ask, and furthermore, she has so edited the tapes as to eliminate the questions she asks. This results in the recording being in monologue form, with no indication as to why or how the person interviewed was prompted to speak on a particular topic." In response Foster argues that de Berg's "idiosyncratic approach in fact creates rather fewer difficulties with writers than with politicians [...] since writers may be judged by what they have said and written, and perhaps ought to be, it does little harm, I believe, to let them ramble on to their hearts' content, as a great many of them did."[17]

Personal

De Berg converted to Judaism and in 1941 married Woolf (William) de Berg, a Lithuanian-born businessman and later presented her work to the Women's International Zionist Organisation (WIZO) state council.[18][19] For more than ten years she dedicated herself to raising their children.[2] During the last months of her life daughter Diana Ritch assisted with the recordings before De Berg died at home in Sydney on 3 February 1984.[7][12] Her twin daughters and son, and several grandchildren, survived her. Her husband William had predeceased her in 1981.[2]

Legacy

De Berg's collection of sound tape reels of interviews with writers, historians, artists, musicians and scientists such as Peter Sculthorpe, A. P. Elkin, Manning Clark, H. C. Coombs, Howard Florey, Jack Lang and Cardinal Norman Gilroy,[14] is held by the National Library of Australia[20] whose pioneering role as Australia's main collector and preserver of oral history (with more than 44,000 recordings by 1990) was initiated by de Berg's early efforts and Harold White's interest in the medium, and was a project that State Libraries have since followed.[9]

Academic Barry York notes that a distinction of de Berg's collection is that her subjects include numbers of Australian women,[21] among them being Barbara Blackman who also recorded interviews, with artists in her case, Anne Summers, Bronwyn Yeates, Cheryl Adamson, Clair Isbister, Dulcie Deamer, Dulcie Holland, Elizabeth Durack, Elizabeth Guy, Elizabeth Harrower, Elizabeth Riddell, Enid Conley, Essie Coffey, Esther Paterson, Gwen Harwood, H. F. Brinsmead, Heather George, Helen Garner, May Gibbs, Hilda Abbott, Irene Greenwood, Jean Skuse, Jessie Scotford, Jessie Street, Jill Hellyer, Dorothea Mackellar,[22] Joan Phipson, Judy Cassab, Kath Walker, Kathleen O'Connor, Kylie Tennant, Lorna Hayter, Maie Casey, Margaret Curtis-Otter, Marjorie Pizer, Miriam Hyde, Nancy Cato, Nancy Keesing, Nancy Robinson, Nerida Goodman, Ninette Dutton, Patsy Adam-Smith, Ruby Rich, Stroma Buttrose, Thelma Bate, Thelma Clune, Vicki Viidikas, and Vida Lahey.

In 1989 a directory of her work, The Hazel de Berg Recordings: From the Oral History Collection of the National Library of Australia, was published.[23] In reviewing it, Barry York called it a "unique and invaluable oral history source" for "Australian researchers, librarians, broadcasters, teachers, students and writers."[21]

Geoffrey Dutton's 1992 book Artists' Portraits[24] consists of transcripts of de Berg's interviews, mostly from the 1960s and includes her photograph of each artist.

The biannual Hazel de Berg Award for oral history was established in her memory by the De Berg family for Oral History Australia and was first presented in 2006.[25]

References

  1. ^ a b Hefner, Robert (27 September 1987). "Recording a dish social history". The Canberra Times. p. 7. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Powell, Graeme, "De Berg, Hazel Estelle (1913–1984)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 28 August 2020
  3. ^ a b ""Far West" Circuit". Northern Times. No. 135. New South Wales, Australia. 17 March 1917. p. 4. Retrieved 28 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. ^ "METHODIST ANNIVERSARY SERVICES". Western Champion. No. 1, 542. New South Wales, Australia. 22 March 1923. p. 12. Retrieved 28 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ^ "TELEGRAMS". The Macleay Chronicle. No. 2462. New South Wales, Australia. 24 February 1926. p. 4. Retrieved 28 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ^ "De Berg Collection". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  7. ^ a b "Oral historian dies suddenly". The Canberra Times. Vol. 58, no. 17, 667. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 11 February 1984. p. 12. Retrieved 28 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ^ "Nova Electrical & Engineering Co.; Sydney, NSW manufacturer". www.radiomuseum.org. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  9. ^ a b York, Barry (13 June 1990). "MIDWEEK MAGAZINE : A hearing for the social voice". The Canberra Times. p. 30. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  10. ^ "de Berg, Hazel Estelle". The Australian Women's Register. Retrieved 28 August 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ a b "Poetic Hobby". The Canberra Times. 17 October 1961. p. 2. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  12. ^ a b c Bures, Susan (8 March 1984). "Hazel recorded immortal past". Australian Jewish Times. p. 4. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  13. ^ de Berg, Hazel. "Hazel de Berg collection of photographs". National LIbrary of Australia. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  14. ^ a b "GANG GANG : Saying a few words on history". The Canberra Times. 20 September 1973. p. 3. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  15. ^ "Hazel Estelle de Berg". Australian Honours Search Facility, Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved 28 August 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  16. ^ "Diplomat who defied Red Guards knighted". The Canberra Times. 1 January 1968. p. 7. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  17. ^ Foster, David; National Library of Australia. Self portraits / selected and introduced by David Foster. National Library of Australia. ISBN 978-0-642-10513-4.
  18. ^ "WIZO State Council". Australian Jewish Times. 3 June 1960. p. 14. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  19. ^ "Socially Yours". Australian Jewish Times. 29 July 1960. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  20. ^ "De Berg Collection | National Library of Australia". www.nla.gov.au. Retrieved 28 August 2020.
  21. ^ a b York, Barry (24 May 1990). "An ear to history". The Canberra Times. Vol. 64, no. 20, 130. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. p. 12 (GOOD TIMES). Retrieved 28 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  22. ^ "Hazel de Berg on ASO - Australia's audio and visual heritage online". aso.gov.au. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  23. ^ National Library of Australia; Bowden, Tim, 1937-, (writer of introduction.); Horton, Warren, 1938-2003, (writer of foreword.); National Library of Australia (1989), The Hazel de Berg recordings from the oral history collection of the National Library of Australia, National Library of Australia, ISBN 978-0-642-10485-4{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  24. ^ Dutton, Geoffrey (1992). Artists' portraits. National Library of Australia. ISBN 0-642-10579-0. OCLC 33165242.
  25. ^ "Hazel de Berg Award". Oral History Australia. Retrieved 6 January 2023.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hazel_de_Berg&oldid=1132089952"