谁, 什么, 在哪里, 当 and 为什么 of Oral History

谁

每个人都有自己的故事! Perhaps you’re hoping to record the experience of a family member who served in the military, or a neighbor who is interested in telling 他们的人生故事. Every voice is important and worth preserving. 同时， 任何人都可以进行面试. Oral history is multi-disciplinary, and is often used by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and linguists. 在20世纪70年代，学者 gathered interviews to access the experiences of people at the grassroots level, whose 人们的声音以前被忽视了. 在她的书中， A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi, Emilye Crosby relies on a large number of civil-rights related interviews.[i] J. Todd Moye also uses an extensive collection of oral histories to understand the 密西西比三角洲 Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, 密西西比州,1945 - 1986.[ii] Both of these historians have deposited their interviews at the Center for Oral History (COHCH), and can be accessed as part of our collections. 然而，你不必这么做 be a professional historian to be part of this process. 只要你熟悉就行 yourself with the techniques, you have the ability to produce a useful interview

 

什么

Donald Ritchie is the author of the essential work on oral history practice, 做口述历史:实用指南.[3] The following excerpt from his book clearly articulates the nature of oral history 以及它的用途.

“Memory is the core of oral history, from which meaning can be extracted and preserved. Simply put, oral history collects memories and personal commentaries of historical 记录访谈的意义. 口述历史采访一般包括 of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange 音频或视频格式. Recordings of the interview are transcribed, summarized, or indexed and then place in a library of archives. 这些面试可能用于 research of excerpted in a publication, radio or video documentary, museum exhibition, dramatization or other form of public presentation.”[iv]

  

在哪里

You can find oral histories in a variety of different places.  你只需要知道 去哪里找!  口述历史有许多不同的形式.  还有卷轴式的 recordings, as well as numerous cassettes and, if they exist, transcripts of these 访谈记录.  At the Center for Oral History, we catalog each of our items 在图书馆的数据库里.  You can locate the text of preserved oral histories through 库克图书馆的网页.  More recently, we have made available the audio of about 425个与民权有关的访谈.  These are also cataloged and searchable online 从USM数字收藏页面. 采访记录是装订成册的 in our offices at McCain Library, with preservation copies held in the USM Archives.  这些访谈是OCLC可检索的.  OCLC is useful for finding oral histories through 其他与COHCH类似的机构.  采访存档在当地的家谱 societies, state archival departments, and universities with oral history programs 可以通过OCLC找到吗.  当 you conduct your own oral history, it is important also to think about what you plan to do with your 项目.  比如中心 for Oral History will accept interviews or other oral history 项目s to their collection, providing the appropriate permissions are in order.

 

当

Oral history has its roots in oral tradition, the verbal passing down of stories through 一代又一代.  The idea of physically preserving individual stories for specific academic 目的是20世纪后期的发明^th 世纪，尤其是随着技术的进步.  有两个早期的机构 iterations that laid a framework for future 项目s to emulate.  约翰B. 凯德是 an extension agent from Louisiana, who worked in conjunction with Southern University.[v]  He studied and taught slavery, and in 1929, he decided it would be beneficial to preserve former slaves’ stories for posterity.[vi]  In 1934, Lawrence Reddick began a Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) 这个项目采访了250名前奴隶(七).  约翰·洛马克斯，本杰明·博特金和J. 斯特林·布朗偏离了早期的做法 of oral history as they collected interviews for their Works Progress Administration 项目.(八)  Botkin later presented at the American Historical Association on the importance and validity of these types of sources, drawing on his experiences in the WPA.[ix]  Allan Nevins developed the first academic oral history program at Columbia University in 1948.[x]  Nevins was also the first to employ the new technology of reel-to-reel tape recorders[xi].  The University of California at Berkeley and UCLA soon followed and developed their 分别于1954年和1958年进行的项目.(十二)  USM是这些较早的机构之一. Dr. Orley B. 考迪尔是第一任导演 of the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, established in 1971.

  

为什么

Conducting oral histories is a crucial part of the historical process. 作为面试官， you create a source of information that is often used in the later writing and presentation 历史的. Taking part in creating oral histories is also useful in learning more 关于你自己和你的社区. While oral histories are important in understanding the role of individual historical actors, they also have the potential to shed light on larger historical processes occurring on the national and international stages.