In 2006 Evoca was honored to provide the technology and funding to record the oral histories of leaders in the Savannah historic preservation movement. These recordings were donated to the Georgia Historical Society. Notable among these leaders were Emma and Lee Adler, spearheading the Savannah movement with innovative methods and a persistent spirit that they generously shared with preservationists worldwide. Savannah mourns the loss of Lee Adler, who passed away on January 29th at age 88. We were fortunate to have recorded Emma Adler, Lee Adler’s wife and long-time partner in the preservation movement.
Among the many citizens and professionals who have memorialized Lee Adler is David J. Brown, chief preservation officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington.”There’s not a preservation group in this country that doesn’t owe some debt of gratitude to the work of Lee Adler.” The recordings of Emma Adler are streamed below by Evoca. The entire collection of oral history interviews is available for listening at the Georgia Historical Society online profile.
In the February 1 AP news article about Adler, reporter Russ Bynum wrote, “Born into a wealthy Savannah family that owned a local department store, Adler’s passion for protecting the 18th and 19th century homes of Georgia’s oldest city was passed on by his mother. Elinor Grunsfeld Adler was among the seven women who launched the [Historic Savannah] foundation that her son would later lead. The women started the group in 1954 to show their outrage after the downtown City Market, where farmers sold their crops, was razed to make way for a parking garage.”
Daniel Carey, Foundation president and friend of Lee Adler, credits him with pioneering the use of a revolving fund to purchase and resell historic properties instead of raising funds one building at a time. Historic preservation organizations around the world has since used Lee Adler’s effective techniques.
Murem Sharpe, Evoca CEO, offered, “Evoca is ideal for capturing public oral histories, such as those we helped create and now archive and stream for anyone to listen and learn. In addition to in-person recording with the historian using the phone as a digital recorder or using our online computer recorder from their Evoca account, interviewers can record phone and Skype interviews.” These four interview methods are popular with both professional oral historians as well as family genealogists.
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