Interview with Arthur M. Eisenson : The Movement Oral History Project

Eisenson, Arthur M.

Interview with Arthur M. Eisenson : The Movement Oral History Project

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Art Eisenson begins the interview by describing the influence of his upbringing in a Jewish family in suburban New York, touching on his family’s ties to the Democratic Party and local unions, as well as the impact of major events of the time, including the civil rights movement and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Arriving at Stanford as a graduate student in the Department of English in 1963, Eisenson describes the genesis of the Graduate Coordinating Committee (GCC), which formed around free speech and took its cue from the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, and later joining protests against the Vietnam War following a series of teach-ins.

Description

Type of resource	text
Extent	1 text file
Place	Stanford (Calif.)
Publisher	Stanford Historical Society
Date created	April 16, 2018 - May 11, 2018
Language	English
Digital origin	born digital

Creators/Contributors

Interviewee	Eisenson, Arthur M.
Creator	Eisenson, Arthur M.
Interviewer	Ochavillo, Vanessa
Publisher	Stanford Historical Society

Subjects

Subject	Bay Area Revolutionary Union
Subject	Venceremos (Organization)
Subject	College Students > Political Activity > United States
Subject	Student movements
Subject	Anti-war demonstrations
Genre	Interview

Bibliographic information

Summary	Art Eisenson begins the interview by describing the influence of his upbringing in a Jewish family in suburban New York, touching on his family’s ties to the Democratic Party and local unions, as well as the impact of major events of the time, including the civil rights movement and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Arriving at Stanford as a graduate student in the Department of English in 1963, Eisenson describes the genesis of the Graduate Coordinating Committee (GCC), which formed around free speech and took its cue from the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, and later joining protests against the Vietnam War following a series of teach-ins. In discussing his campus activism, Eisenson moves through his involvement with the Stanford Committee for Peace in Vietnam (SCPV), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Venceremos and the Revolutionary Union, and the April Third Movement (A3M), especially the sit-ins at the Applied Electronics Laboratory (AEL) and Stanford president Wallace Sterling’s office in protest of the Stanford Research Institute’s contributions to the Vietnam War. He also describes experiencing a personal “rubicon,” a realization of the lengths he would go to in order to defend friends and beliefs if threatened. Eisenson also describes off-campus activism, including handing out leaflets to workers at a plant manufacturing napalm and supporting striking workers at a steel plant in Milpitas. Eisenson left Stanford in 1969, moving to Los Angeles, where he worked in the entertainment industry and became active in the Writers Guild. Throughout the interview, he aims to give a sense of the cultural milieu of the time, including the impact of books, movies, and music on his generation.
Biography	In 1963, Art arrived at Stanford to become a writer. Until then, he lived all his life in New York, growing up in a New York suburb and then studying English and comparative literature at Columbia College of Columbia University. In part to avoid the military draft, he went on to pursue a master’s degree at Stanford. As a graduate student, he began his activism with the Graduate Coordinating Committee, followed by the Stanford Committee for Peace in Vietnam and Students for a Democratic Society. <br/> After graduating with master’s degrees in English and communication, Art went on to write for theatrical film and television in Los Angeles, contributing crime dramas for Warner Bros, Universal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and Columbia. Among his notable works rooted in his campus experience is “What Really Happened to the Class of '65?,” an anthology television series that aired on NBC in 1978. He continued his activism in media through the Writers Guild of America, West where he served as picket captain and member of the strike committees in five strikes, lead plaintiff in the Television Writers Class Action Age Discrimination Lawsuits, and chairperson for the Committee on Freedom of Expression and Censorship. <br/> When Eisenson left Stanford in 1969, he received two master’s degrees and a temporary restraining order forbidding him to step foot on campus. He now resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he continues to write professionally. A partial list of his credits is available here: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0260545/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Audio	Title Audio
Finding Aid	Title The Movement Oral History Project (SC1432)
Repository	Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Location	SC1432
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/xx653yw3674

Access conditions

Use and reproduction: The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. For commercial permission requests, please contact the copyright holders.

Collection

The Movement oral history project, 2018

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