Interviewee: James Magill
Date of birth/age at interview: 1912/74
Interviewer: Rita Durrant
Interview date: January 27, 1986
Interview location: Magill home or office in New Hope
Interview length: 43 minutes
Time span discussed: 1915 to 1986
Summary: The interview covers Jim’s family history with touches on Quakers, his Father’s medical practice in New Hope, their education, and moving through some of the events of the period including the war and his government service. As an active politician he spends a good deal of time on New Hope’s issues, the AIDS epidemic, the gay community ,and other community members reaction to the disease.
Time markers:
00:00 – family history, Carversville until 3 and moved to New Hope
02:43 – Quaker background
03:24 – Solebury Meeting, Buckingham Meeting
04:41 – schools in New Hope; graduated from high school on hill (now Kehilat HaNahar) in 1930
05:26 – childhood friends
06:30 – his father’s 40-year medical practice
07:58 – artistic community; his father drawing and painting
10:55 – Bucks County Playhouse
11:28 – college education; employment with Federal Government; World War II service
13:21 – small service business in New Hope
13:50 – community service in New Hope; New Hope’s #1 citizen
15:22 – parking issues in New Hope; new building in Village 2 will add to problem
17:05 – lower Main Street
19:07 – Historical Architectural Review Board
20:51 – Lambertville houses and mills
22:12 – drugs in town
22:39 – AIDS discussion
29:25 – (interruption, skip)
32:30 – admired Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S Truman; senior internship on aging
37:07 – Herbert Hoover
37:31 – (inteviewer speaks)
38:51 – New Hope School of Art; possibility of museum with local artists works; Anne Lathrop donates a painting to the New Hope Historical Society (1985)
40:48 – (interruption to tape end)
