Oral History

Oral History is the technique whereby trained researchers create new primary sources by careful interviews of informants. Historians have always talked to informants. What is new is the systematic idenitficiation and interviewing of selected people in order to create a long-term archive. The most expensive part is the transcription of tape recorded interviews. The technique originated in folklore studies and spread to history in the 1940s, especially the Oral History office at Columbia University, set up by history professor Allan Nevins.

H-ORALHIST. is an H-Net Discussion Network (or edited Blog) established in 2006. http://www.h-net.org/~oralhist/. H-ORALHIST is an interenational network of people interested in oral history, focused on collecting and preserving tape-recorded remembrances of past experiences. Subscriptions are free. H-ORALHIST enables oral historians to discuss research interests, 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 features dialogues in the discipline and 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. Subscribers submit questions, comments, and reports. H-ORALHIST posts announcements of conferences, fellowships, and jobs. It also carries information about new books and commissions book reviews.

Bibliography

• Ronald J. Grele, et al. Envelopes of Sound: The Art of Oral History Praeger Publishers, 1991 online edition
• James Hoopes; Oral History: An Introduction for Students U of North Carolina Press, 1979. online edition
• Kelin, Daniel, II. To Feel as Our Ancestors Did: Collecting and Performing Oral Histories. Heinemann, 2005. 200 pp.
• Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide, Oxford University Press (2003) online edition

External links

• http://www.bodegavision.com/ Gregory Rossi the definitive NY pop oral historian icon who has done over 200 interviews conducted on 4 continents including the Galapagos Islands
• http://www.stvincent.edu/napp11 Appalachian Studies (NORTHERN)Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA. Richard Wissolik, Ph.D., Director.
• http://www.stvincent.edu/napp17 Appalachian Studies (NORTHERN) World War II Oral Histories. They Say There Was A War. European and Pacific Theatres. Richard Wissolik, Ph.D., Director.
• http://www.stvincent.edu/napp14 Appalachian Studies (NORTHERN) Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA Richard Wissolik, Ph.D., Director. World War II Oral Histories. The Long Road: From Oran to Pilsen. European Theatre.
• American Life Histories WPA Writers' Project 1936–1940 at Library of Congress (US)
• Center for Studies in Oral Tradition The center's mission is to facilitate communication across disciplinary boundaries by creating linkages among specialists in different fields. Through our various activities we try to foster conversations and exchanges about oral tradition that would not otherwise take place.
• My Recollection Self-selected memories (non-academics)
• [1] Early American music handed down
• Oral History Archives of World War II — Rutgers University
• Oral History Association (US)
• Oral History Association of Australia
• Oral History Directory of Australia
• Oral History in the Teaching of U.S. History
• Oral History Online —Berkeley University (mostly California and the West)
• Oral History Society (GB)
• Techniques and Procedures of Oral History US Army Center of Military History
• Telling stories — Urban School of San Francisco (Holocaust narratives)
• The Whole World Was Watching Oral history of 1968 in US — Brown U
• World War II Submarine Veterans History Project California Center for Military History
• eTexts of oral history of former U.S. slaves collected in the 1930s by the WPA, at Project Gutenberg
• In the First Person A free index of more than 2,500 collections of oral history in English from around the world.
• The New Haven Oral History Project at Yale University.
• Life in the Model City: Stories of Urban Renewal in New Haven — online oral history-based exhibit
• Story Corps A program that records the oral history of people today and how we got here. All oral records are stored in the Library of Congress.
• ALPAMYSH; A study in Central Asian oral history
• Southern Oral History Project founded 1973 by UNC-Chapel Hill under the principle "You don't have to be famous for your life to be history" - Nell Sigmon
• ORAL HISTORY IN FLANDERS; A Dutch website about Flanders' oral history
• Science Fiction Oral History Association
• Making Sense of Oral History
• Refugee Stories - Listen to People's Experiences The site of the Refugee Communities History Project is full of oral history in mp3 format. The project won the 2006 Charity Award for arts, culture and heritage in the UK.
• Storytelling and Oral History from the Ultimate Storytelling Guide