Terry Strubbe's Tape Recorder
| Description |
Terry Strubbe was a freshman at Kent State in the spring of 1970. As a student interested in a career in broadcast journalism, he owned the small tape recorder seen on display here. On May 4, 1970, he noticed the crowds gathering on The Commons just outside his ground-floor dormitory window in Johnson Hall (Room 110). He placed this tape recorder on the windowsill, started a recording, and then went outside to see more of what was happening. The recording he made that day includes about 10 minutes of audio prior to the shootings, the approximately 13 seconds of the Ohio National Guard gunfire, and about 5 to 10 minutes of audio after the shootings took place. Later that day, when the dormitories were being closed down and all students had to evacuate campus, he hitchhiked home with this tape recorder and his tapes. That tape recording became a vital piece of evidence in the subsequent May 4 hearings and trials; it is the only known audio recording of the events that took place shortly before the shots were fired. It became known as the "Strubbe Tape," and is also the only known uninterrupted recording of all 67 shots fired by the Ohio National Guardsmen. The original tape is now held in the Manuscripts and Archives Repository at Yale University. Mr. Strubbe generously donated this tape recorder to Kent State in 2022. You can listen to him tell his eyewitness story of May 4 and the days surrounding the shootings at the Kent State Shootings Oral Histories. |
| Author/Photographer |
Strubbe, Terry |
| Date |
1970 |
| Institution |
Kent State University |
| Repository |
Special Collections and Archives |
| Provenance/Collection |
May 4 collection |
| Finding aid |
May 4 Memorabilia and Artifacts |
| Portion Digitized |
Photograph of the artifact |
| Access Rights |
This digital object is owned by Kent State University and may be protected by U.S. Copyright law (Title 17, USC). Please include proper citation and credit for use of this item. Use in publications or productions is prohibited without written permission from Kent State University. Please contact the Department of Special Collections and Archives for more information. |
| Duplication Policy |
http://www.library.kent.edu/special-collections-and-archives/duplication-policy |
| DPLA Rights Statement |
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Format of Original |
artifact |
Credits
Curated by Kathleen Siebert Medicus with guest contributors