Oral History as Method and Source Spring Digital History Internship 2015

Steve Inskeep NPR interview – Nov. 11, 2014

What to Expect in this Internship Two Parts, each 8 weeks long. Readings on Oral History and its challenges Two Interviews per student, peer-reviewed. Critiques of Oral History Interviews Submission of a possible Oral History Project for second half of Internship. No grades.

Welcome! 1.Name 2.Birth year 3.Major 4.Interests 5.Favorite book, film, series, singer, food 6.What do you hope to gain from this internship?

What is Oral History Good For? Journalism History Research Cultural Anthropology Ethnography Linguistics Folklore Life History / Family History

What is Oral History? What it ISN’T. It is not quite journalism because…. It is not quite folklore because…. It is not a mere chat…. It is not oral tradition …. What it IS. It is a method whose aim is to preserve public and private memory in order to preserve an historical record for future historians – or to supplement the historical record using non- documentary evidence.

Oral History Definitions Definition 1: Oral history is the collection of memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. Definition 2: Oral history is a method of preserving the memory of often underrepresented groups or people in their own words in the belief that accurate history must include the history of common people.

Memory and Oral History Long-term memory and its problems: Poor memory Selective memory The heavily edited memory

A Law of Memory People remember what they think is important, not necessarily what the interviewer thinks is important. Question why the interviewee feels their memory an event or person is important.

Public and Private Memory Public memory is a society’s collective conceptions about the past. Public memory involves symbols and stories and monuments and official histories.

Private Memory Private memory is an individual’s or a family's understanding of the past. Private memory involves photos and letters and family heirlooms. None of these items will enter public memory See Donald Waldie’s Holy Land -- A Suburban Memoir

The Laws of Memory: The Rashomon Effect Point of view matters. The contradictory tales told in the classic film Rashomon represented the tellers’ differing impressions, self-images and self delusions, not poor memories. The film higlights the subjectivity of truth and the uncertainty of factual accuracy.

Is Oral History Good History? Is Oral History History? “…different eyewitnesses give different accounts of the same events, speaking out of partiality for one side or the other or else from imperfect memories.” Thucydides, 5 th century b.c.e.

Examples of Good Oral History Nate Cobb, All God’s Dangers. Steve Inskeep Interview with Parents about Son’s death. StoryCorps Any work by Studs Terkel

A Short History of Oral History “All history was at first oral.” Thucydides and The Peloponnesian War. 1859: Horace Greeley, Brigham Young, and the New York Tribune Sound recordings, Edison and The Great Depression and the Works Progress Administration, 1930s and Allen Nevins at Columbia University and UCLA; Oral History Association in Life History and the Smartphone