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Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned
interview An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" re ...
s. These interviews are conducted with people who participated in or observed past events and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record for future generations. Oral history strives to obtain information from different perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written sources. ''Oral history'' also refers to information gathered in this manner and to a written work (published or unpublished) based on such data, often preserved in
archives An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...
and large
libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...
.oral history. (n.d.) The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia®. (2013). Retrieved 12 March 2018 from https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/oral+history Knowledge presented by oral history is unique in that it shares the tacit perspective, thoughts, opinions and understanding of the interviewee in its primary form. The term is sometimes used in a more general sense to refer to the study of information about past events that witnesses told anybody else, but professional
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
s usually consider this to be the study of
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...
or ''traditional oral history'' due to the source receiving the information aurally.


Overview

It is believed that the term ''oral history'' originates with Joe Gould, a homeless man living in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
who solicited donations by claiming that he was working on a massive manuscript called "An Oral History of Our Time", which he said consisted of thousands of recorded conversations on various topics. Although he was known to have a history of mental illness and violence, Gould was beloved by some writers in
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...
, including
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...
and E. E. Cummings. His writing, supposedly excerpts from this "Oral History", was published in elite literary magazines, and he was eventually profiled in ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
''. Oral history has become an international movement in historical research. This is partly attributed to the development of information technology, which allowed a method rooted in orality to contribute to research, particularly the use of personal testimonies made in a wide variety of public settings. For instance, oral historians have discovered the endless possibilities of posting data and information on the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
, making them readily available to scholars, teachers, and ordinary people. This reinforced the viability of oral history since the new modes of transmission allowed history to get off archival shelves and reach the larger community. Oral historians in different countries have approached the collection, analysis, and dissemination of oral history in different modes. There are many ways of creating and studying oral histories even within individual national contexts. According to the ''
Columbia Encyclopedia The ''Columbia Encyclopedia'' is a one-volume encyclopedia produced by Columbia University Press and, in the last edition, sold by the Gale Group. First published in 1935, and continuing its relationship with Columbia University Columbi ...
'':, the accessibility of tape recorders in the 1960s and 1970s led to oral documentation of the era's movements and protests. Following this, oral history has increasingly become a respected record type. Some oral historians now also account for the subjective memories of interviewees due to the research of Italian historian Alessandro Portelli and his associates. Oral histories are also used in many communities to document the experiences of survivors of tragedies. Following the
Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
, there has emerged a rich tradition of oral history, particularly of Jewish survivors. The
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust, dedicated to the documentation, study, and interpretation of the Holocaust. Opened in 1993, the museum explores the Holocaust through p ...
has an extensive archive of over 70,000 oral history interviews. There are also several organizations dedicated specifically to collecting and preserving oral histories of survivors. Oral history as a discipline has fairly low barriers to entry, so it is an act in which laypeople can readily participate. In his boo
Doing Oral History
Donald Ritchie wrote that "oral history has room for both the academic and the layperson. With reasonable training... anyone can conduct a useable oral history." This is especially meaningful in cases like the Holocaust, where survivors may be less comfortable telling their story to a journalist than they would be to a historian or family member. In the United States, there are several organizations dedicated to doing oral history which are not affiliated with universities or specific locations.
StoryCorps StoryCorps is an American non-profit organization which aims to record, preserve, and share the stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs. Its mission statement is "to help us believe in each other by illuminating the humanity and po ...
is one of the most well-known of these: following the model of the Federal Writers’ Project created as part of the
Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...
, StoryCorps’ mission is to record the stories of Americans from all walks of life. On contrast to the scholarly tradition of oral history, StoryCorps subjects are interviewed by people they know. There are a number of StoryCorps initiatives that have targeted specific populations or problems, following in the tradition of using oral history as a method to amplify voices that might otherwise be marginalized. The development of digital databases with their text-search tools is one of the important aspects to the technology-based oral historiography. These made it easier to collect and disseminate oral history since access to millions of documents on national and international levels can be instantaneous.


Growth and development


In Europe


Great Britain and Ireland

Since the early 1970s, oral history in Britain has grown from being a method in
folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
studies (see for example the work of the
School of Scottish Studies A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of ...
in the 1950s) to becoming a key component in community histories. Oral history continues to be an important means by which non-academics can actively participate in the compilation and study of history. Practitioners in a wide range of academic disciplines have also developed the method into a way of recording, understanding, and archiving narrated memories. Influences have included women's history and labour history. In Britain, the
Oral History Society The Oral History Society promotes the collection, preservation and use of recorded memories of the past. As well as offering practical advice and support, the Society aims to raise standards in oral history practices across a range of activities ...
has played a key role in facilitating and developing the use of oral history. A more complete account of the history of oral history in Britain and Northern Ireland can be found at "Making Oral History" on the
Institute of Historical Research The Institute of Historical Research (IHR) is a British educational organisation providing resources and training for historical researchers. It is part of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London and is located at Senate Hou ...
's website. The
Bureau of Military History Bureau ( ) may refer to: Agencies and organizations *Government agency *Public administration * News bureau, an office for gathering or distributing news, generally for a given geographical location * Bureau (European Parliament), the administr ...
conducted over 1700 interviews with veterans of the First World War and
Irish revolutionary period The revolutionary period in Irish history was the period in the 1910s and early 1920s when Irish nationalist opinion shifted from the Home Rule-supporting Irish Parliamentary Party to the republican Sinn Féin movement. There were several ...
in Ireland. The documentation was released for research in 2003. During 1998 and 1999, 40 BBC local radio stations recorded personal oral histories from a broad cross-section of the population for ''The Century Speaks'' series. The result was 640 half-hour radio documentaries, broadcast in the final weeks of the millennium, and one of the largest single oral history collections in Europe, the Millennium Memory Bank (MMB). The interview-based recordings are held by the
British Library Sound Archive The British Library Sound Archive, formerly the British Institute of Recorded Sound; also known as the National Sound Archive (NSA), in London, England is among the largest collections of recorded sound in the world, including music, spoken word ...
in the oral history collection. In one of the largest memory projects anywhere, the BBC in 2003-06 invited its audiences to send in recollections of the
home front Home front is an English language term with analogues in other languages. It is commonly used to describe the civilian populace of the nation at war as an active support system for their military. Civilians are traditionally uninvolved in com ...
in the Second World War. It put 47,000 of the recollections online, along with 15,000 photographs.


In Italy

Alessandro Portelli is an Italian oral historian. He is known for his work which compared workers' experiences in Harlan County, Kentucky and Terni, Italy. Other oral historians have drawn on Portelli's analysis of memory, identity, and the construction of history.


In post-Soviet/Eastern bloc states


Belarus

, since the government-run historiography in modern Belarus almost fully excludes repression during the epoch when Belarus was part of the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, only private initiatives cover the oral memories of the Belarusians. Citizens' groups in Belarus use the methods of oral history and record narrative interviews on video; the Virtual Museum of Soviet Repression in Belarus presents a full
virtual museum A virtual museum is a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity, and richness of content. Virtual museums can perform as ...
with intense use of oral history.


Czech Republic

Czech oral history began to develop beginning in the 1980s with a focus on social movements and political activism. The practice of oral history and any attempts to document stories prior to this is fairly unknown. The practice of oral history began to take shape in the 1990s. In 2000, The Oral History Center (COH) at the Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic (AV ČR) was established with the aim of "systematically support the development of oral history methodology and its application in historical research". In 2001, Post Bellum, a nonprofit organization, was established to "documents the memories of witnesses of the important historical phenomenons of the 20th century" within the Czech Republic and surrounding European countries. Post Bellum works in partnership with
Czech Radio Czech Radio (, ČRo) is the public radio broadcaster of the Czech Republic operating continuously since 1923. It is the oldest national radio broadcaster in continental Europe and the second-oldest in Europe after the BBC. Czech Radio was esta ...
and
Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes ( or ÚSTR) is a Czech government agency and research institute. It was founded by the Czech government in 2007 and is situated at Siwiecova street, Prague- Žižkov (the street is named after ...
. Their oral history project '' Memory of Nation'' was created in 2008 and interviews are archived online for user access. As of January 2015, the project has more than 2100 published witness accounts in several languages, with more than 24,000 pictures. Other projects, including articles and books have been funded by the Czech Science Foundation (AV ČR) including: * "Students in the Period of the Fall of Communism – Life Stories" published as the book ''One Hundred Student Revolutions'' (1999) by M. Vaněk and M. Otáhal; * "Political Elites and Dissidents during the Period of So-called Normalization – Historical Interviews" which resulted in ''Victors? Vanquished'' (2005), a two-volume collection of 50 interviews; * A compilation of original interpretive essays entitled ''The Powerful?! or Helpless?!'' * "An Investigation into Czech Society during the 'Normalization' Era: Biographic Narratives of Workers and the Intelligentsia" and * A book of interpretations called ''Ordinary People...?!'' (2009). These publications aim to demonstrate that oral history contributes to the understanding of human lives and history itself, such as the motives behind the dissidents' activities, the formation of opposition groups, communication between dissidents and state representatives and the emergence of ex-communist elites and their decision-making processes. Oral history centers in the Czech Republic emphasize educational activities (seminars, lectures, conferences), archiving and maintaining interview collections, and providing consultations to those interested in the method.


In Spain

Because of repression in
Francoist Spain Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death i ...
(1939–75), the development of oral history in Spain was quite limited until the 1970s. It became well-developed in the early 1980s, and often had a focus on the Civil War years (1936–39), especially regarding the ones who lost the war and whose stories had been suppressed. At the University of Barcelona, Professor was a leading scholar, who combined oral history with her interest in quantification and social history. Barcelona scholars sought to integrate oral sources with traditional written sources to create mainstream, not ghettoized, historical interpretations. They sought to give a public voice to neglected groups, such as women, illiterates, political leftists, and ethnic minorities. In 1987, at Universidade De Santiago de Compostela, Marc Wouters and Isaura Varela started an oral history project focused on the Spanish Civil War, exile, and migration. The project explored victims of the war and the Francoist Dictatorship and includes 2100 interviews and 800 hours of audio.


In the United States

Oral history began with a focus on national leaders in the United States, but has expanded to include groups representing the entire population. In Britain, the influence of 'history from below' and interviewing people who had been 'hidden from history' was more influential. In both countries, elite oral history has emerged as an important strand. Scientists, for example, have been covered in numerous oral history projects. Doel (2003) discusses the use of oral interviews by scholars as primary sources, He lists major oral history projects in the history of science begun after 1950. Oral histories, he concludes, can augment the biographies of scientists and help spotlight how their social origins influenced their research. Doel acknowledges the common concerns historians have regarding the validity of oral history accounts. He identifies studies that used oral histories successfully to provide critical and unique insight into otherwise obscure subjects, such as the role scientists played in shaping US policy after World War II. Interviews furthermore can provide road maps for researching archives, and can even serve as a fail-safe resource when written documents have been lost or destroyed. Roger D. Launius (2003) shows the huge size and complexity of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) oral history program since 1959. NASA systematically documented its operations through oral histories. They can help to explore broader issues regarding the evolution of a major federal agency. The collection consists primarily of oral histories conducted by scholars working on books about the agency. Since 1996, it has included oral histories of senior NASA administrators and officials, astronauts, and project managers, part of a broader project to document the lives of key agents. Launius emphasizes efforts to include such less-well-known groups within the agency as the Astrobiology Program, and to collect the oral histories of women in NASA.


Folklore roots and ordinary people

Contemporary oral history involves recording or transcribing eyewitness accounts of historical events. Some
anthropologists An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
started collecting recordings (at first especially of Native American folklore) on phonograph cylinders in the late 19th century. In the 1930s, the
Federal Writers' Project The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers and to develop a history and overview of the United States, by state, cities and other jurisdictions. It was ...
—part of the
Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...
(WPA)—sent out interviewers to collect accounts from various groups, including surviving witnesses of the Civil War, slavery, and other major historical events. The
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
also began recording traditional American music and folklore onto acetate discs. With the development of audio tape recordings after World War II, the task of oral historians became easier. In 1946, David P. Boder, a professor of psychology at the
Illinois Institute of Technology The Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Illinois Tech and IIT, is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the m ...
in Chicago, traveled to Europe to record long interviews with "displaced persons"—most of them Holocaust survivors. Using the first device capable of capturing hours of audio—the wire recorder—Boder came back with the first recorded Holocaust testimonials and in all likelihood the first recorded oral histories of significant length. Over some forty years, Fran Leeper Buss interviewed marginalized women such as Jesusita Aragon, a traditionally trained midwife, and Maria Elena Lucas a migrant farm worker activist, using transcripts of the interviews to write their life stories. Many state and local historical societies have oral history programs. Sinclair Kopp (2002) reported on the
Oregon Historical Society The Oregon Historical Society (OHS) is an organization that encourages and promotes the study and understanding of the history of the State of Oregon, within the broader context of U.S. history. Incorporated in 1898, the Society collects, pres ...
's program. It began in 1976 with the hiring of Charles Digregorio, who had studied at Columbia with Nevins. Thousands of sound recordings, reel-to-reel tapes, transcriptions, and radio broadcasts have made it one of the largest collections of oral history on the Pacific Coast. In addition to political figures and prominent businessmen, the Oregon Historical Society has done interviews with minorities, women, farmers, and other ordinary citizens, who have contributed extraordinary stories reflecting the state's cultural and social heritage. Hill (2004) encourages oral history projects in high school courses. She demonstrates a lesson plan that encourages the study of local community history through interviews. By studying grassroots activism and the lived experiences of its participants, her high school students came to appreciate how African Americans worked to end Jim Crow laws in the 1950s. Mark D. Naison (2005) describes the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP), an oral community history project developed by the Bronx County Historical Society. Its goal was to document the histories of black working- and middle-class residents of the South Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania in New York City since the 1940s.


In Asia


Syria

Katharina Lange studied the tribal histories of
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
. The oral histories in this area could not be transposed into tangible, written form due to their positionalities, which Lange describes as "taking sides". The positionality of oral history could lead to conflict and tension. The tribal histories are typically narrated by men. While histories are also told by women, they are not accepted locally as "real history". Oral histories often detail the lives and feats of ancestors.
Genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
is a prominent subject in the area. According to Lange, the oral historians often tell their own personalized genealogies to demonstrate their credibility, both in their social standing and their expertise in the field.


Palestine

Oral sources have established themselves as a vital, diverse, and adaptable source of information for the study of Palestinian history. Researchers benefited from the material contributions of oral studies to studies examining a wide range of topics, including folktales,
food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for Nutrient, nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or Fungus, fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, protein (nutrient), proteins, vitamins, ...
and
clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...
,
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
and
toponymy Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' ( proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper na ...
,
genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
, agricultural activities, and religious cult. Furthermore, due to the dearth of extant indigenous
documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance, and use. As a form of knowledge managem ...
, oral histories continue to play a crucial role in Palestinian academics' continuous efforts to narrate significant moments in Palestine's history. Researchers engaged in a flurry of
methodological In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
discussions as Palestinian oral history research reached its zenith in the latter quarter of the 20th century. Some of these researchers published their recommendations in manuals specifically designed to standardize and inform oral history research within the Palestinian context. Notable Palestinian oral history projects include the
American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB; ) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its main campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, autonomous board of trustees and offers programs le ...
's Palestinian Oral History Archive
POHA
, and th
Palestinian Oral History Map
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
'
Oral History Project
in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...
,
Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...
's Palestinian Oral History Project, the Palestinian Rural History Project (PRHP)
Palestine Remembered
and Zochrot.


China

The rise of oral history is a new trend in historical studies in China that began in the late twentieth century. Some oral historians, stress the collection of eyewitness accounts of the words and deeds of important historical figures and what really happened during those important historical events, which is similar to common practice in the west, while the others focus more on important people and event, asking important figures to describe the decision making and details of important historical events. In December 2004, the Chinese Association of Oral History Studies was established. The establishment of this institution is thought to signal that the field of oral history studies in China has finally moved into a new phase of organized development.


Uzbekistan

From 2003 to 2004, Professors Marianne Kamp and Russell Zanca researched
agricultural collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-o ...
in
Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...
in part by using oral history methodology to fill in gaps in information missing from the Central State Archive of Uzbekistan. The goal of the project was to learn more about life in the 1920s and 1930s to study the impact of the Soviet Union's conquest. 20 interviews each were conducted in the
Fergana valley The Fergana Valley (also commonly spelled the Ferghana Valley) in Central Asia crosses eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Encompassing three former Republics of the Soviet Union, Soviet republics, the valley is e ...
,
Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...
,
Bukhara Bukhara ( ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan by population, with 280,187 residents . It is the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and t ...
,
Khorezm Khwarazm (; ; , ''Xwârazm'' or ''Xârazm'') or Chorasmia () is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the east by the Kyzylkum Desert, on the south by t ...
, and Kashkadarya regions. Their interviews uncovered stories of famine and death that had not been widely known outside of local memory in the region.


Southeast Asia

While
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...
is an integral part of ancient Southeast Asian history, oral history is a relatively recent development. Since the 1960s, oral history has been accorded increasing attention on institutional and individual levels, representing "history from above" and "history from below". In Oral History and Public Memories, Blackburn writes about oral history as a tool that was used "by political elites and state-run institutions to contribute to the goal of national building" in postcolonial Southeast Asian countries. Blackburn draws most of his examples of oral history as a vehicle for "history from above" from Malaysia and Singapore. In terms of "history from below", various oral history initiatives are being undertaken in Cambodia in an effort to record lived experiences from the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime while survivors are still living. These initiative take advantage of crowdsourced history to uncover the silences imposed on the oppressed.


South Asia

Two prominent and ongoing oral history projects out of South Asia stem from time periods of ethnic violence that were decades apart: 1947 and 1984. The 1947 Partition Archive was founded in 2010 by Guneeta Singe Bhalla, a physicist in Berkeley, California, who began conducting and recording interviews "to collect and preserve the stories of those who lived through this tumultuous time, to make sure this great human tragedy isn't forgotten"

The Sikh Diaspora Project was founded in 2014 by Brajesh Samarth, senior lecturer in Hindi-Urdu at Emory University in Atlanta, when he was a lecturer at Stanford University in California. The project focuses on interviews with members of the Sikh diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, including the many who migrated after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, 1984 massacre of Sikhs in India.


In Oceania


Australia

Hazel de Berg Hazel Estelle de Berg (; 21 March 1913 – 3 February 1984) was an Australian pioneering oral historian and broadcaster who conducted recordings locally and abroad including the United Kingdom and United States. De Berg recorded her collections ...
began recording Australian writers, artists, musicians and others in the Arts community in 1957. She conducted nearly 1300 interviews. Together with the
National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...
, she was a pioneer in the field in Australia, working together for twenty-seven years. In December 1997, in response to the first recommendation of the '' Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families'' report, the
Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...
announced funding for the
National Library A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public library, public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, ...
to develop and manage an oral history project. The Bringing Them Home Oral History Project (1998–2002) collected and preserved the stories of
Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...
and others involved in or affected by the child removals resulting in the
Stolen Generations The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Aboriginal Australians, Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Gover ...
. Other contributors included
missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...
, police and government administrators. There are now many organisations and projects all over Australia involved in recording oral histories from Australians of all ethnicities and in all walks of life. Oral History Victoria support an annual Oral history award as part of the Victorian Community History Awards held annually to recognise the contributions made by Victorians in the preservation of the state's history, published during the previous year.


Academia and institutions

In 1948, Allan Nevins, a
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
historian, established the Columbia Oral History Research Office, now known as the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, with a mission of recording, transcribing, and preserving oral history interviews. The Regional Oral History Office was founded in 1954 as a division of the University of California, Berkeley's
Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library is the primary special-collections library of the University of California, Berkeley. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retain the name Bancroft Library in perpetuity. ...
. In 1967, American oral historians founded the
Oral History Association The Oral History Association (OHA) is a professional association for oral historians and others interested in advancing the practice and use of oral history.Mansel G. Blackford, a business historian at
Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...
, argued that oral history was a useful tool to write the history of corporate mergers. More recently,
Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...
launched the Creating Emerging Markets project, which "explores the evolution of business leadership in Africa, Asia, and Latin America throughout recent decades" through oral history. "At its core are interviews, many on video, by the School's faculty with leaders or former leaders of firms and NGOs who have had a major impact on their societies and enterprises across three continents." There are now numerous national organizations and an
International Oral History Association The International Oral History Association (IOHA) is a professional association established to provide a forum for oral historians around the world. IOHA was formally constituted in June 1996 at the IXth International Oral History Conference in G ...
, which hold workshops and conferences and publish newsletters and journals devoted to oral history theory and practices. Specialized collections of oral history sometimes have archives of widespread global interest; an example is the Lewis Walpole Library in
Farmington, Connecticut Farmington is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. The populati ...
, a department of the University Library of
Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
.


Methods

Historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
s,
folklorists Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics, tradition studies or folk life studies in the UK) is the academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the ac ...
,
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
s, human geographers,
sociologists This list of sociologists includes people who have made notable contributions to sociological theory or to research in one or more areas of sociology. A * Peter Abell, British sociologist * Andrew Abbott, American sociologist * Margaret ...
,
journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...
s,
linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures ...
, and many others employ some form of interviewing in their research. Although multi-disciplinary, oral historians have promoted common ethics and standards of practice, most importantly the attaining of the "
informed consent Informed consent is an applied ethics principle that a person must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about accepting risk. Pertinent information may include risks and benefits of treatments, alternative treatme ...
" of those being interviewed. Usually this is achieved through a deed of gift, which also establishes
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
ownership that is critical for publication and archival preservation. Oral historians generally prefer to ask open-ended questions and avoid leading questions that encourage people to say what they think the interviewer wants them to say. Some interviews are "life reviews", conducted with people at the end of their careers. Other interviews focus on a specific period or a specific event in people's lives, such as in the case of war veterans or survivors of a hurricane. Feldstein (2004) considers oral history to be akin to journalism, Both are committed to uncovering truths and compiling narratives about people, places, and events. Felstein says each could benefit from adopting techniques from the other. Journalism could benefit by emulating the exhaustive and nuanced research methodologies used by oral historians. The practice of oral historians could be enhanced by utilizing the more sophisticated interviewing techniques employed by journalists, in particular, the use of adversarial encounters as a tactic for obtaining information from a respondent. The first oral history archives focused on interviews with prominent politicians, diplomats, military officers, and business leaders. By the 1960s and '70s, influenced by the rise of new social history, interviewing began to be employed more often when historians investigated history from below. Whatever the field or focus of a project, oral historians attempt to record the memories of many different people when researching a given event. Interviewing a single person provides a single perspective. People misremember events or distort their accounts for various reasons. By interviewing widely, oral historians seek points of agreement among many different sources, and also record the complexity of the issues. The nature of memories is as much a part of the practice of oral history as are the stories collected.


Archaeology

Archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
sometimes conduct oral history interviews to learn more about unknown artifacts. Oral interviews can provide narratives, social meaning, and contexts for objects. When describing the use of oral histories in archaeological work, Paul Mullins emphasizes the importance of using these interviews to replace "it-narratives". It-narratives are the voices from objects themselves rather than people; according to Mullins, these lead to narratives that are often "sober, pessimistic, or even dystopian". Oral history interviews were used to provide context and social meaning in the Overstone excavation project in
Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...
. Overstone consists of a row of four cottages. The excavation team, consisting of Jane Webster, Louise Tolson, Richard Carlton, and volunteers, found the discovered artifacts difficult to identify. The team first took the artifacts to an archaeology group, but the only person with knowledge about a found fragment recognized the fragment from a type of pot her mother had. This inspired the team to conduct group interviews volunteers who grew up in households using such objects. The team took their reference collection of artifacts to the interviews in order to trigger the memories of volunteers, revealing a "shared cultural identity".


Legal interpretations

In 1997, the
Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; , ) is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants eac ...
, in the '' Delgamuukw v. British Columbia'' trial, ruled that, in the context of "
Aboriginal title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the Indigenous land rights, land rights of indigenous peoples to customary land, customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty to that land by another Colonization, colonising state. ...
" claims, oral histories were just as important as written testimony. Writers who use oral history have often discussed its relationship to historical truth. Gilda O'Neill writes in ''Lost Voices'', an oral history of East End hop-pickers: "I began to worry. Were the women's, and my, memories true or were they just stories? I realised that I had no 'innocent' sources of evidence – facts. I had, instead, the stories and their tellers' reasons for remembering in their own particular ways.'
Duncan Barrett Duncan Barrett is a writer and editor who specialises in biography and memoir. After publishing several books in collaboration with other authors, he published his first solo book, ''Men of Letters'', in 2014. Barrett also works as a journalist ...
, one of the co-authors of ''
The Sugar Girls ''The Sugar Girls: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End'' is a work of narrative non-fiction based on interviews with women who worked in Tate & Lyle's East End factories in Silvertown from the mid-1940s onwards. Wr ...
'' describes some of the perils of relying on oral history accounts: "On two occasions, it became clear that a subject was trying to mislead us about what happened – telling a self-deprecating story in one interview, and then presenting a different, and more flattering, version of events when we tried to follow it up. ... often our interviewees were keen to persuade us of a certain interpretation of the past, supporting broad, sweeping comments about historical change with specific stories from their lives." Alessandro Portelli argues that oral history is valuable nevertheless: "it tells us less about events as such than about their meaning ..the unique and precious element which oral sources force upon the historian ... is the speaker's subjectivity." Regarding the accuracy of oral history, Jean-Loup Gassend concludes in the book ''Autopsy of a Battle'', "I found that each witness account can be broken down into two parts: 1) descriptions of events that the witness participated in directly, and 2) descriptions of events that the witness did not actually participate in, but that he heard about from other sources. The distinction between these two parts of a witness account is of the highest importance. I noted that concerning events that the witnesses participated in, the information provided was surprisingly reliable, as was confirmed by comparison with other sources. The imprecision or mistakes usually concerned numbers, ranks, and dates, the first two tending to become inflated with time. Concerning events that the witness had not participated in personally, the information was only as reliable as whatever the source of information had been (various rumors); that is to say, it was often very unreliable and I usually discarded such information." In 2006, American historian Caroline Elkins published '' Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya'', detailing the
Mau Mau Uprising The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the ...
against
British rule The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or dire ...
and its suppression by the colonial government. The work received both praise and criticism over its usage of oral testimony from Kenyans. Three years later in 2009, a group of Kenyans who had been interned in concentration camps during the rebellion by the colonial authorities filed a lawsuit against the
British government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
. The case, known as ''Mutua and Five Others versus the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 ...
'', was heard at the
High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal (England and Wales), Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cour ...
in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
with the Honourable Justice McCombe presiding. Oral testimony detailing abuses by colonial officials, recorded by Elkins in ''Imperial Reckoning'', was cited as evidence by the prosecution during the case, British lawyer Martyn Day and the Kenya Human Rights Commission. During the trial, over the course of
discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...
the FCO discovered some 300 boxes of previously undisclosed files that validated Elkins' claims in ''Imperial Reckoning'' and provided new evidence supporting the claimants' case. McCombe eventually ruled in the Kenyan claimants' favor, stressing the "substantial documentation supporting accusations of systematic abuses".


Pros and cons

When using oral history as a source material, several caveats exist. The person being interviewed may not accurately recall factual information such as names or dates, and they may exaggerate. To avoid this, interviewers can do thorough research prior to the interview and formulate questions for the purpose of clarification. There also exists a pre-conceived notion that oral history is less reliable than written records. Written source materials are different in the execution of information, and that they may have additional sources. Oral sources identify intangibles such as atmosphere, insights into character, and clarifications to points made briefly in print. Oral history can also indicate lifestyle, dialect and terminology, and customs that may no longer be prominent. Oral history can be used academically to trigger independent contextualisation and independent research regarding views expressed by interviewees. Successful oral history enhances its written counterpart. Other concerns that scholars point to include the fact that the data collected in the form of oral histories is difficult to quantify, can reflect the researchers’ biases towards their object of study, and are open to many interpretations. In addition, older male speakers from rural communities who have spent their whole life there and who usually did not continue education past age 14 are proportionally overrepresented in some oral history material.


Transcription

Transcribing the data obtained is obviously beneficial and the intentions for future use of transcripts largely determine the way in which the interview will be transcribed. As oral history projects as a rule do not involve the employment of a professional transcriber, "aberrant" characteristics such as dialectal features and superfluous repetitions may be neutralized and eliminated so as to make transcripts more accessible to average readers who are not accustomed to such "aberrations"; that is to say, transcripts may be not completely reflective of the original, actual utterances of the interviewees.


Controversies

In Guatemalan literature, ''I, Rigoberta Menchú'' (1983), brings oral history into the written form through th
''testimonio''
genre. ''I, Rigoberta Menchú'' is compiled by Venezuelan anthropologist Burgos-Debray, based on a series of interviews she conducted with Menchú. The Menchú-controversy arose when historian David Stoll took issue with Menchú's claim that "this is a story of all poor Guatemalans". In ''Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans'' (1999), Stoll argues that the details in Menchú's ''testimonio'' are inconsistent with his own fieldwork and interviews he conducted with other Mayas. According to Guatemalan novelist and critic Arturo Arias, this controversy highlights a tension in oral history. On one hand, it presents an opportunity to convert the subaltern subject into a "speaking subject". On the other hand, it challenges the historical profession in certifying the "factuality of her mediated discourse" as "subaltern subjects are forced to ranslate across epistemological and linguistic frameworks anduse the discourse of the colonizer to express their subjectivity".


Organizations

*
American Folklife Center The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife". The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the library in 1928 as a rep ...
* Archives of African American Music and Culture,
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...
* Baylor University Institute for Oral History * Columbia Center for Oral History, Columbia University
Houston Asian American Archive, Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University
* Institut d’histoire du temps présent,
French National Centre for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 engi ...
* Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History,
University of Kentucky Libraries The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is ...
*
New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...
Community Oral History Projects * Oral History Centre,
National Archives of Singapore The National Archives of Singapore (NAS) ( Malay: ''Arkib Negara Singapura'', Mandarin: 新加坡国家档案馆, Tamil: சிங்கப்பூர் தேசிய காப்பகம்) is the national archives of Singapore. It was for ...
* Post Bellum * Regional Oral History Office (ROHO),
Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library is the primary special-collections library of the University of California, Berkeley. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retain the name Bancroft Library in perpetuity. ...
,
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
* Samuel Proctor Oral History Program,
University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
* Southern Oral History Program,
University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...
*
StoryCorps StoryCorps is an American non-profit organization which aims to record, preserve, and share the stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs. Its mission statement is "to help us believe in each other by illuminating the humanity and po ...
* Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center


Notable oral historians

*
Svetlana Alexievich Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich (born 31 May 1948) is a Belarusian investigative journalist, essayist and oral historian who writes in Russian. She was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to s ...
* David P. Boder * Barry Broadfoot *
Tom Brokaw Thomas John Brokaw (; born February 6, 1940) is an American author and retired network television journalist. He first served as the co-anchor of Today (American TV program), ''The Today Show'' from 1976 to 1981 with Jane Pauley, then as the anch ...
* Alex Haley * Oscar Lewis * Alessandro Portelli *
Sang Ye Sang Ye (born 1955) is the pen name of Shen Dajun, a Chinese journalist, oral historian, and collector. He is the author of two oral histories, ''Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China'' (co-authored with the novelist Zhang Xinxin (wri ...
*
Studs Terkel Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) was an American writer, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1985 for ''The Good War'' and is best remembered for his oral histor ...
* Wallace Terry, journalist and author of oral history anthologies featuring African American war veterans and of black journalists. * Tong Tekong * T. Harry Williams * Zhang Xinxin


Notable oral history projects


Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938
Library of Congress. A selection of first-person accounts by formerly enslaved people in the United States.
Civil Rights History Project
Library of Congress. A collection of interviews with people who participated in the Civil Rights struggle up through and beyond the 1960s. * Memory of Nations, Post Bellum. A collection of testimonies from people across Europe sharing life under totalitarian regimes in the 20th century.
Veterans History Project
Library of Congress. A collection of personal accounts by American veterans spanning the First World War, 1914, through the Iraq War, 2011.
Separated: Stories of Injustice and Solidarity
A collection of oral history interviews with parents and children separated by the Trump Administration under Zero Tolerance policy in 2017 and 2018.


See also

*
Collective memory Collective memory is the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire collect ...
* National Day of Listening * Oral history preservation *
Oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...


References


Further reading

* * Cruikshank, Julie. "Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, & Social Imagination." UBC Press, 2005. . * Doel, Ronald E. "Oral History of American Science: a Forty-year Review." ''History of Science'' 2003 41(4): 349–378. * Feldstein, Mark. "Kissing Cousins: Journalism and Oral History." ''Oral History Review'' 2004 31(1): 1-22. * Grele, Ronald J. "Oral history" in * Grele, Ronald J. et al. ''Envelopes of Sound: The Art of Oral History'' Praeger Publishers, 1991 * Hill, Iris Tillman. "Community Stories: a Curriculum for High School Students." ''Magazine of History'' 2004 18(2): 43–45. * Hoopes, James. ''Oral History: An Introduction for Students'' U of North Carolina Press, 1979. * Kelin, Daniel, II. ''To Feel as Our Ancestors Did: Collecting and Performing Oral Histories.'' Heinemann, 2005. 200 pp. * Launius, Roger D. "'We Can Lick Gravity, but Sometimes the Paperwork Is Overwhelming': NASA, Oral History, and the Contemporary Past." ''Oral History Review'' 2003 30(2): 111–128. * * Merolla, D. and Turin, M. ''Searching for Sharing: Heritage and Multimedia in Africa'' Open Book Publishers, 2017. . * Naison, Mark. "The Bronx African American History Project." ''OAH Newsletter'' 2005 33(3): 1, 14. * Ritchie, Donald A. ''Doing Oral History.'' Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2014. * * * Sinclair, Donna and Kopp, Peter. "Voices of Oregon: Twenty-five Years of Professional Oral History at the Oregon Historical Society." ''Oregon Historical Quarterly'' 2002 103(2): 250–263. * * Tomes, Nancy. "Oral History in the History Of Medicine." ''Journal of American History'' 1991 78(2): 607–617. * Vansina, Jan. ''Oral Tradition as History'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), focus on Africa * Vilanova, Mercedes. "International Oral History", ''History Workshop Journal'' (1995) No. 39 pp. 67–70. ; by a leader of the oral history movement in Spain


External links

* From the
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
: *
Food Stories
– Food-related oral history recordings from the BL Sound Archive *
Oral history collections and activities, including National Life Stories
* From the
US Government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, execut ...
: *
Oral History of the US House of Representatives
*

* From
Academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
: *
Oral History Program
a
University of South Florida Libraries
*
Oral History in the Digital Age
at
Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...
(East Lansing, Michigan) *
Oral History Center
at
University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public university, public research university in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. Chartered in 1798 as the Jefferson Seminary, it became in the 19t ...
(Louisville, Kentucky) *
University at Buffalo Archives Oral History Collection
from the University at Buffalo Libraries *
Oral History of American Music
at
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
(New Haven, Connecticut)
Over 600 oral histories of combat veterans
from the Witness to War Foundation (non-profit)
in the First Person
– index of 2,500+ collections of international oral histories in English



– includes more than 12,000 pages of oral histories as told by 503 firefighters, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians

– "The recordings all relate to post-war Seattle history and cover a diverse array of topics -- such as transportation, race relations, housing, city planning and labor."
Richard S. Hobbs Oral History Interviews with Revels Cayton.
– "The collection consists of oral history interview recordings and partial transcripts of interviews, mostly conducted by Richard Hobbs with Revels Cayton. Interviews were used for the book ''The Cayton Legacy: an African American family.''


World War II


Rosie the Riveter / World War II Home Front Oral History Project
Collection of oral histories with women and men living and working on the U.S. home front during WWII Regional Oral History Office and
National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

Recollections of WWII
– Directory of United Kingdom Oral History Collections Relating to WWII
376th Heavy Bombardment Group Oral Histories
from the
Ball State University Ball State University (Ball State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The university has three off-campus centers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Fishers, Indiana. The university is composed of seven aca ...
Digital Media Repository
World War II Records – Tennesseeans and War
from the University of Tennessee Tennesseans and War Oral History Project


Vietnam War


Vietnam War Era Veterans Oral Histories
from the
Ball State University Ball State University (Ball State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The university has three off-campus centers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Fishers, Indiana. The university is composed of seven aca ...
Digital Media Repository


Organizations


H-ORALHIST is an H-Net Discussion Network (or edited Blog) established in 2006

Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling
Concordia University Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...

The Australian Centre for Oral History

Oral History Australia
(national organisation, with branches in each state)
Oral History Association of Australia

Institut d'histoire du temps présent

Oral History Centre, National Archives of Singapore

Pritzker Military Library's "Stories of Service" collects and records first‐hand accounts from veterans and citizens involved in military efforts
*


Technical


Oral History in the Digital Age
at
Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...
(East Lansing, Michigan)
Digital Omnium: Oral History, Archives and Digital Technology
by Doug Boyd
Digital Audio and Portable Recorders: The Basics
by Doug Boyd
General principles and best practices for oral history

Dédalo Project
– Open software platform for management of intangible cultural heritage and oral history

from the East Midlands Oral History Archive
"Ask Doug" resource for choosing a digital audio recorder
Oral History in the Digital Age
Testimony software
from the Australian Centre for Oral History (used in it
Cultural Conversations
project)

by Peter Copeland is designed to aid audio engineers and audio archivists, and is available via the British Library Sound Archive
"OHMS: enhancing Access to Oral History for Free" by Doug Boyd. Oral History Review Volume 40 Issue 1 Summer:Fall 2013, Oxford University Press

Doing Oral History with Vietnam War Veterans EDSITEment lesson plan


Resources


Ethical guidelines


''Is Your Oral History Legal and Ethical? (2012)'' by the Oral History Society


Journals

* ''Oral History'' in the UK was first published in 1972; established two years before the ''Review''. () * ''The Oral History Review'' in the USA was first published in 1974 ()


Listserves

* H-ORALHIST is an H-Net Discussion Network established in 1996, based on an earlier listserv, OHA-L, developed by Terry Birdwhistell of the University of Kentucky (). It works by email and knits together an international network of researchers interested in creating and using oral history. Its daily email reach 3400 subscribers with discussions of current projects, teaching methods, and the state of historiography in the field. H-ORALHIST is especially interested in methods of teaching oral history to graduate and undergraduate students in diverse settings. H-ORALHIST publishes syllabi, outlines, handouts, bibliographies, tables of contents of journals, guides to term papers, listings of new sources, library catalogs and archives, and reports on new software, datasets, and other materials. H-ORALHIST posts announcements of conferences, fellowships, and jobs. It also carries information about new books and commissions book reviews. {{Authority control Historiography
History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...