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Title: Interview with Ted Schuchat - #2
Original format: VHS
Item Id.: spl_ds_tschuchat_01_02
Description: This is part 2 of 2 of an interview with Ted Schuchat. This interview was conducted by Donald Schmechel on February 29, 1988 at Schuchat’s Washington D.C. home.
Theodore L. Schuchat (1923-2014) was a journalist and speechwriter who worked for the federal government for over 30 years. Schuchat was born in Warrenton, West Virginia and grew up in Baltimore. He attended West Virginia University where he was President of his class. Schuchat’s education was interrupted due to World War II when he joined the Army and served as a radarman. After the war he worked for an advertising agency in New York before resuming his college career at the New School. After graduating from college, he moved back to Washington D.C. and began working for the federal government in 1950. There he worked for the Interior Department and also wrote speeches for political figures. He also worked as a freelance writer with a focus on topics such as health, welfare and retirement. He was the author of syndicated column for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Outside of work, Ted served as the first president of Temple Micah in Washington, D.C. Schuchat moved to Seattle in 2005.
During the interview, he discusses his family background, his childhood in West Virginia and Baltimore, his education and his career in Washington D.C.
This interview is part of the Donald Schmechel Oral History Collection. Don Schmechel, who was a member of the Seattle Public Library Foundation board, began this project with Seattle Public Library in 1984, with the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) brought on board as a partner in early 1985. Schmechel himself worked to raise the funding for the project, and volunteered his time to manage the project, and to conduct interviews along with a crew of volunteers. Originally titled the Videotaping Historic Figures (VHF) Program, the project interviewed 91 people, with a portion of the interviews entering the collections of the Seattle Public Library and a portion of them going to MOHAI.The interviews conducted with these Seattle civic, business and cultural leaders in 1985 are valuable first-hand accounts that provide insight into developments taking place in the mid-twentieth century.
Digitization of this videotape material has been made possible in part by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.