Drugs in the valley: fifty years of Merck and Co. oral history collection

Access and use

Location of collection:
James Madison University
Second Floor Room 203, MSC 1704
Carrier Library
James Madison University
880 Madison Drive
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Tiffany Cole
Phone: (540) 568-3444
Phone: (540) 568-3612
Fax: (540) 568-3405
Restrictions:

Access to oral history interviews is governed by agreements with the narrators. All interviews in this collection are open for research without restriction. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection. Please contact Special Collections staff at library-special@jmu.edu before visiting the James Madison University Special Collections Library to use this collection.

Terms of access:

Copyright interests for the interviews in this collection have been transferred to James Madison University Special Collections. Copyright status for other collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for determining copyright status and obtaining permissions for use rests solely with the user.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item/interview], [date of item/interview], Drugs in the valley: fifty years of Merck and Co. oral history collection, SdArch 0003, Special Collections, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA.

Summary

Extent:
0.25 cubic feet 4 folders and 4 original sound cassettes
Creator:
Oakes, Laura and Oakes, Laura
Abstract:
Collection is an oral history project comprised of a background paper and three audio recordings with corresponding transcripts of interviews conducted in July 1990 by Laura Oakes with former and current employees of the Merck and Co., Inc. pharmaceutical manufacturing plant located in Elkton, Virginia, known as the Stonewall Plant.
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item/interview], [date of item/interview], Drugs in the valley: fifty years of Merck and Co. oral history collection, SdArch 0003, Special Collections, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection is comprised of a background paper and three audio recordings with corresponding transcripts of oral history interviews conducted in July 1990 with individuals who had worked at the Merck and Co., Inc. pharmaceutical manufacturing plant located in Elkton, Virginia known as the Stonewall Plant.

The background paper provides contextual information around the genesis of the oral history project and outlines the project purpose as intending to record the experiences of plant employees to understand the impact of Elkton, Virginia plant operations on individuals and communities in the Shenandoah Valley and beyond. The background paper includes a brief chronological history of the growth and development of the pharmaceutical corporation, Merck and Co., Inc. with focus on the history of the Stonewall Plant.

Interviews in this collection record the recollections of three individuals who worked at the Stonewall plant in different capacities, and who were selected for participation in the project to reflect a variety of viewpoints. A summary of each interview is included in a scope and contents note for each individual interview.

Biographical / historical:

Oral history interviews that make up this collection were conducted in July 1990 by JMU undergraduate student Laura Oakes, as part of an oral history summer internship in Special Collections. The background paper and the three interviews in this collection formed the basis for the bachelor honors thesis titled Drugs in the Valley: the history of the Stonewall Plant of Merck and Company, Inc., 1941-1991, as well as the monograph titled Stonewall: the realization of a vision, 1941-1991, both published in 1991 and authored by Oakes. Copies of both of these related titles form part of Special Collections' rare book holdings.

Acquisition information:
Interviews and collection materials were donated to Special Collections in 1990 by Laura Oakes.
Processing information:

In 2008, Libraries' staff in the media resources department reformatted the contents of the original audio cassettes in this collection, using a Tascam CC-222MKII CD recorder / cassette combination deck to transfer digitized m4a and mp3 files onto MAM-A Gold Archival 700MB CD-Rs to serve as both access copies and preservation storage.

In 2018, the digital archivist in Special Collections completed a large-scale project to transfer reformatted born-digital files stored on gold CDs off of the physical media and into access and preservation storage environments on Libraries servers. As part of this project, the digital archivist also combined audio files when appropriate for interviews that were originally recorded across multiple pieces of physical media or on different sides of a single piece of media, and applied a new file naming convention constructed from the oral history collection identifer and a component unique identifer used to differentiate among interviews at the file level in the archival description. The archivist saved these newly combined interview files in .wav file format for preservation storage, and also created derivative access file copies in .mp3 file format.

In 2025, as part of an oral history redescription project, archivists corrected errors in file names for audio files in this collection to align with existing file naming conventions for digitized Special Collections materials, and to ensure that all component unique identifiers used within file names for digital surrogates matched the identifiers employed in the corresponding archival description.

Physical facet:
(Reformatted access copies
Dimensions:
3 digitized audio recordings)
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard