Collection is open for research.
Dorothea Marie Lensch was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1907. She earned a bachelor's degree in health and physical education from Mills College in Oakland, California, and in 1930 she earned a master's degree in health from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She was head of the dance departments at Rockford College and at George Washington University. In 1936, she returned to Portland and became director of recreation at the Portland Parks Bureau, now known as Portland Parks and Recreation. In 1965, she became the first person to earn a doctorate in recreation from the University of Oregon in Eugene. She greatly expanded recreation programs and facilities for the city's parks, and retired in 1972. She died in 2000.
A typescript summary (2 pages) is available for in-person use at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Oral history interview with Dorothea M. Lensch, by Roberta Watts, SR 9346, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
An additional oral history interview with Dorothea Lensch, SR 9634, and an unprocessed collection of Lensch's papers, Accession 24319, are also held by the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Dorothea M. Lensch was conducted by Roberta Watts at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Oregon, in two sessions on December 5 and 16, 1977, as part of the oral history program at the society's research library. The sound quality is very poor.
In the first interview session, conducted on December 5, 1977, Lensch discusses her education in recreation at Mills College in Oakland, California, at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She talks about the development of the concept of recreation in public parks beyond playgrounds for children. She shares her reasons for returning to Portland after heading the dance department at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., speaks about serving as director of recreation for the Portland Parks Bureau with Paul Keyser, and discusses lobbying the city government for parks programs. She talks about services offered by the Parks Bureau in the 1930s and 1940s, including health services and child care; about acquiring buildings and land for the bureau; and about her experiences as a woman in municipal government. She speaks at length about developing performing arts and sports programs for the Parks Bureau. She shares her thoughts about the operations of the bureau at the time of the interview.
In the second interview session, conducted on December 16, 1977, Lensch discusses the work of the Portland Parks Bureau after her retirement, then reflects on the accomplishments of her career. She speaks about the importance of parks to communities, talks about the facilities and design of several specific parks, and describes the organizational structure of the bureau. Interviewer Watts discusses the prevalence of hostile architecture in parks, and Lensch talks about public art replacing street furniture in Portland. She speaks about her experience with recreational programming in other countries, particularly Germany. She closes the interview by talking about the long-term benefits of recreational programming for children and communities.
Copyright for this interview is held by the estate of Dorothea M. Lensch. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright -