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Dearest readers, I am sorry to say that the time has come for me to say goodbye. I have had a wonderful time meeting you all, not to mention learning more than I ever thought I would know about the fantastic field of oral history. However, grant applications and comprehensive examinations are calling my name, so I must take a step back from tweeting, Facebooking, tumbling and Google plusing (sure, why not).

Fear not, we have found another to take my place: the esteemable and often bow-tie-wearing Andrew Shaffer. I chatted with him earlier this week and I already think he’ll make a wonderful Caitlin 2.0. (For instance, Andrew originally wanted to introduce himself with the lyrics from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. A+.)

*   *   *   *   *

So, Andrew, tell us a bit about yourself.

Well, Caitlin, I am a first year PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying gender and sexuality history in a modern US context. I’m originally from Illinois, but lived in San Francisco for three years before coming to Madison. There I received an MA in International Studies and worked at a non-profit that provides legal resources and policy analysis to immigrants and immigration advocates.

Do you have any interests outside of school?

Honestly? Not really… But when I’m not thinking about school, I sometimes read, go on walks, or explore all the exciting things Madison has to offer.

That’s a little sad. But since you love school so much, I bet you have exceptionally exciting research interests?

I’m really interested in the ways LGBT activists have responded to political and social changes, and how their efforts have impacted the everyday lives of LGBT communities. Because of the incredible diversity among LGBT communities, I use intersectional approaches to better understand how various segments of our community are affected, or even created by these changes.

Oh, awesome! Do you use oral history or interviews in your research?

Absolutely! I had the good fortune to take a class on oral history methods in college, and I fell in love with it right away. Since then, I’ve been involved with multiple oral history projects, and I think it is one of the best tools available to preserve a community’s memories. Because I study the very recent past, I’m lucky to be able to use interviews and oral histories extensively in my research.

You’ll fit in just fine here then — perhaps even better than I did. Speaking of, what are you looking forward to about this position?

I’m most looking forward to meeting and interacting with people who are using oral history to accomplish new and interesting things. The Oral History Review has featured some really great articles on things like using Google Glass for interviews, and using oral history to document the lives of people with schizophrenia. I’m excited to learn more about novel uses of oral history.

Thanks for noticing! I (and Troy) have worked hard to keep up with the latest trends in the field and to shine a spotlight on all the great work oral historians have been doing. Any concerns about taking over?

Definitely! Like most academic types, I find it easier to write 30 pages than 140 characters, but hopefully I’ll learn some brevity. You’ve done a really great job of preparing and sharing high quality posts through Oral History Review’s social media outlets, and I hope I can continue to provide an enjoyable experience for all of our followers!

I’m sure you’ll do great. Best of luck!

*   *   *   *   *

Andrew has already taken over all the social media platforms, so you should feel free to bombard him with questions at @oralhistreview, in the comments below or via the other 3 million social media accounts he now runs. He and I will also be at the upcoming annual meeting in October, so be sure to say hi — and goodbye.

Image credit: Cropped close-up of two hands passing a relay baton against a white background. © chaiyon021 via iStockphoto.

The post So Long, Farewell appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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In a few months, Troy and I hope to welcome you all to the 2014 Oral History Association (OHA) Annual Meeting, “Oral History in Motion: Movements, Transformations, and the Power of Story.” This year’s meeting will take place in our lovely, often frozen hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, from 8-12 October 2014. I am sure most of you have already registered and booked your hotel room. For those of you still dragging your feet, hopefully these letters from OHA Vice President/President Elect Paul Ortiz and Program Committee co-chairs Natalie Fousekis and Kathy Newfont will kick you into gear.

*   *   *   *   *

Madison, Wisconsin. The capitol city of the Badger State evokes images of social movements of all kinds. This includes the famed “Wisconsin Idea,” a belief put forth during an earlier, tumultuous period of American history that this place was to become a “laboratory for democracy,” where new ideas would be developed to benefit the entire society. In subsequent years, Madison became equally famous for the Madison Farmers Market, hundreds of locally-owned businesses, live music, and a top-ranked university. Not to mention world-famous cafes, microbreweries, and brewpubs! [Editor’s note: And fried cheese curds!] Our theme, “Oral History in Motion: Movements, Transformations and the Power of Story,” is designed to speak directly to the rich legacies of Wisconsin and the upper Midwest, as well as to the interests and initiatives of our members. Early on, we decided to define “movements” broadly — and inclusively — to encompass popular people’s struggles, as well as the newer, exciting technological changes oral history practitioners are implementing in our field.

Creating this year’s conference has been a collaborative effort. Working closely with the OHA executive director’s office, our program and local arrangements committees have woven together an annual meeting with a multiplicity of themes, as well as an international focus tied together by our belief in the transformative power of storytelling, dialog, and active listening. Our panels also reflect the diversity of our membership’s interests. You can attend sessions ranging from the historical memories of the Haitian Revolution and the future of the labor movement in Wisconsin to the struggles of ethnic minority refugees from Burma. We’ll explore the legacies left by story-telling legends like Pete Seeger and John Handcox, even as we learn new narratives from Latina immigrants, digital historians and survivors of sexual abuse.

Based on the critical input we’ve received from OHA members, this year’s annual meeting in will build on the strengths and weaknesses of previous conferences. New participants will have the opportunity to be matched with veteran members through the OHA Mentoring Program. We will also invite all new members to the complimentary Newcomers’ Breakfast on Friday morning. Building on its success at last year’s annual meeting, we are also holding Interest Group Meetings on Thursday, in order to help members continue to knit together national—and international—networks. The conference program features four hands-on oral history workshops on Wednesday, and a “Principles and Best Practices for Oral History Education (grades 4-12)” workshop on Saturday morning. This year’s plenary and special sessions are also superb.

With such an exciting program, it is little wonder that early pre-registration was so high! I hope that you will join us in Madison, Wisconsin for what will be one of the most memorable annual meetings in OHA history!

In Solidarity,
Paul Ortiz
OHA Vice President/President Elect

*   *   *   *   *

The 2014 OHA Annual Meeting in Madison, Wisconsin is shaping up to be an especially strong conference. The theme, “Oral History in Motion: Movements, Transformations and the Power of Story,” drew a record number of submissions. As a result, the slate of concurrent sessions includes a wide variety of high quality work. We anticipate that most conference-goers will, even more so than most years, find it impossible to attend all sessions that pique their interest!

The local arrangements team in Madison has done a wonderful job lining up venues for the meeting and its special sessions, including sites on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Madison Public Library. The meeting will showcase some of Madison’s richest cultural offerings. For instance, we will open Wednesday evening in Sterling Hall with an innovative, oral-history inspired performance on the 1970 bomb explosion, which proved a key flashpoint in the Vietnam-era anti-war movement. After Thursday evening’s Presidential Reception, we will hear a concert by Jazz Master bassist Richard Davis — who will also do a live interview Saturday evening.

In keeping with our theme, many of our feature presentations will address past and present fights for social and political change. Thursday afternoon’s mixed-media plenary session will focus on the music and oral poetry of sharecropper “poet laureate” John Handcox, whose songs continue to inspire a broad range of justice movements in the U.S. and beyond. Friday morning’s “Academics as Activists” plenary session will offer a report from the front lines of contemporary activism. It will showcase an interdisciplinary panel of scholars who have emerged as leading voices in recent pushes for social change in Wisconsin, North Carolina and nationwide. The Friday luncheon keynote will feature John Biewen of Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, who has earned recognition for—among other things—his excellent work on disadvantaged groups. Finally, on Friday evening we will screen Private Violence, a film featured at this year’s Sundance festival. Private Violence examines domestic violence, long a key concern in women’s and children’s rights movements. The event will be hosted by Associate Producer Malinda Maynor Lowery, who is also Director of the University of North Carolina’s Southern Oral History Program.

Join us for all this and much more!

Natalie Fousekis and Kathy Newfont
Program Committee

*   *   *   *   *

See you all in October!

Headline image credit: Resources of Wisconsin. Edwin Blashfield’s mural “Resources of Wisconsin”, Wisconsin State Capitol dome, Madison, Wisconsin. Photo by Jeremy Atherton. CC BY 2.0 via jatherton Flickr.

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By Caitlin Tyler-Richards

There are many exciting things coming down the Oral History Review pipeline, including OHR volume 41, issue 2, the Oral History Association annual meeting, and a new staff member. But before we get to all of that, I want to take one last opportunity to celebrate OHR volume 41, issue 1 — specifically, Abigail Perkiss’ “Reclaiming the Past: Oral History and the Legacy of Integration in West Mount Airy, Philadelphia.” In this article, Abigail investigates an oral history project launched in her hometown in the 1990s, which sought to resolve contemporary tensions by collecting stories about the area’s experience with racial integration in the 1950s. Through this intriguing local history, Abigail digs into the connection between oral history, historical memory, and social change.

Abigail Perkiss. Photo credit: Laurel Harrish Photography

If that weren’t enough to whet your academic appetite, the article also went live the same week her first daughter, Zoe, was born.

How awesome is that?

But back to business. Earlier this month I chatted with Abigail about the article and the many other projects she has had in the works this year. So, please enjoy this quick interview and her article, which is currently available to all.

How did you become interested in oral history?

I’ve been gathering people’s stories in informal ways for as long as I can remember, and as an undergraduate sociology major at Bryn Mawr College, my interests began to coalesce around the intersection of storytelling and social change. I took classes in ethnography, worked as a PA on a few documentary projects, and interned at a documentary theater company. All throughout, I had the opportunity to develop and hone my skills as an interviewer.

I began taking history classes my junior year, and through that I started to think about the idea of oral history in a more intentional way. I focused my research around oral history, which culminated in my senior thesis, in which I interviewed several folksingers to examine the role of protest music in creating a collective memory of the Vietnam War, and how that memory was impacting the way Americans understood the war in Iraq. A flawed project, but pretty amazing to speak with people like Pete Seeger, Janis Ian, and Mary Travers!

After college, I studied at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine, and when I began my doctoral studies at Temple University, I knew that I wanted to pursue research that would allow me to use oral history as one of the primary methodological approaches.

What sparked your interest in the Mount Airy project?

When I started my graduate work at Temple, I was pursuing a joint JD/PhD in US history. I knew I wanted to do something in the fields of urban history and racial justice, and I kept coming back to the Mount Airy integration project. I actually grew up in West Mount Airy, and even as a kid, I was very much aware of the lore of the neighborhood integration project. There was a real sense that the community was unique, special.

I knew that there had to be more to the utopian vision that was so pervasive in public conversations about the neighborhood, and I realized that by contextualizing the community’s efforts within the broader history of racial justice and urban space in the mid-twentieth century, I would be able to look critically about the concept and process of interracial living. I could also use oral history as a key piece of my research.

Your article focuses on an 1990s oral history project led by a local organization, the West Mount Airy Neighbors. Why did you choose to augment the interviews they collected with your own?

The 1993 oral history project was a wonderful resource for my book project (from which this article comes); but for my purposes, it was also incomplete. Interviewers focused largely on the early years of integration, so I wasn’t able to get much of a sense of the historical evolution of the efforts. The questions were also framed according to a very particular set of goals that project coordinators sought to achieve — as I argue, they hoped to galvanize community cohesion in the 1990s and to situate the local community organization at the center of contemporary change.

So, while the interviews were quite telling about the West Mount Airy Neighbors’ efforts to maintain institutional control in the neighborhood, they weren’t always useful for me in getting at some of the other questions I was trying to answer: about the meaning of integration for various groups in the community, about the racial politics that emerged, about the perception of Mount Airy in the city at large. To get at those questions, it was important for me to conduct additional interviews.

Is there anything you couldn’t address in the article that you’d like to share here?

As I alluded to above, it is part of a larger book project on postwar residential integration, Making Good Neighbors: Civil Rights, Liberalism, and Integration in Postwar Philadelphia (Cornell University Press, 2014). There, I look at the broader process of integrating and the challenges that emerged as the integration efforts coalesced and evolved over the decades. Much of the research for the book came from archival collections, but the oral histories from the 1990s, and the ones I collected, were instrumental in fleshing out the story and humanizing what could otherwise have been a rather institutional history of the West Mount Airy Neighbors organization.

Are you working on any projects the OHR community should know about?

I’ve spent the past 18 months directing an oral history project on Hurricane Sandy, Staring out to Sea, which came about through a collaboration with Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region (remember them?) and a seminar I taught in Spring 2013. That semester, I worked intensively with six undergraduates, studying the practice of oral history and setting up the project’s parameters. The students developed the themes and questions, recruited participants, conducted and transcribed interviews. They then processed and analyzed their findings, looking specifically at issues of race, power and representation in the wake of the storm.

In addition to blogging about their experience, the students presented their work at the 2013 OHMAR and OHA meetings. You can read a bit more about that and the project in Perspectives on History. This fall, I’ll be working with Professor Dan Royles and his digital humanities students to index the interviews we’ve collected and develop an online digital library for the project. I’ll also be attending to the OHA annual meeting this year to discuss the project’s transformative impact on the students themselves.

Excellent! I look forward to seeing you (and the rest of our readers) in Madison this October.

Caitlin Tyler-Richards is the editorial/media assistant at the Oral History Review. When not sharing profound witticisms at @OralHistReview, Caitlin pursues a PhD in African History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research revolves around the intersection of West African history, literature and identity construction, as well as a fledgling interest in digital humanities. Before coming to Madison, Caitlin worked for the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.

The Oral History Review, published by the Oral History Association, is the U.S. journal of record for the theory and practice of oral history. Its primary mission is to explore the nature and significance of oral history and advance understanding of the field among scholars, educators, practitioners, and the general public. Follow them on Twitter at @oralhistreview, like them on Facebook, add them to your circles on Google Plus, follow them on Tumblr, listen to them on Soundcloud, or follow their latest OUPblog posts via email or RSS to preview, learn, connect, discover, and study oral history.

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By Caitlin Tyler-Richards

This summer, our editor-in-chief Kathy Nasstrom is taking a well-deserved break, and leaving the Oral History Review and related cat-herding in the hands of the extremely capable Stephanie Gilmore. As some may have read in the Oral History Association’s most recent newsletter, Stephanie is a multitalented historian who works to combat sexual assault on university campuses. With a PhD in comparative women’s history from the Ohio State University, she is the author of Groundswell: Grassroots Feminist Activism in Postwar America (Routledge, 2013), as well as many essays on sexuality and social activism. She serves as associate editor at The Feminist Wire and newsletter editor of the Committee of LGBT Historians’ biannual newsletter. She is also a member of the editorial collective at Feminist Studies.

A few weeks ago, I chatted with Stephanie about her experience with oral history, activist work and her plans for the OHR. I started with the most important and hard hitting question: “When did you first become interested in oral history?” Like many in the field, Stephanie told me she has always enjoyed listening to people talk about their lives and experience. She recalled one assignment in a undergrad women’s history course when she interviewed her own mother. While an admittedly simple approach to oral history, the experience drove home for Stephanie “that everyone has her own stories and experiences that can contribute to and complicate a larger history of a group.” This sentiment grew as Stephanie continued to work with women’s stories. She told me, “It was when I was working on my MA thesis on the Memphis chapter of NOW that I really came into the power and potential of oral histories. What I had learned about the women’s movement in its 1970s heydays was based on histories grounded in New York, Boston, and Chicago. These histories were often told as “national” histories of the US women’s movement. When I started studying feminist activism in Memphis, I discovered feminists whose lives were nothing like their counterparts in the North. The archival material was fairly rich, but only in talking to Memphis feminists about their lives and work did I actually learn how important southern identity was to them and to their activism.”

Stephanie had a similar experience working on her recently published book, Groundswell: “In Groundswell, I traced feminist activism through NOW in the 1970s and early 1980s in Memphis, Columbus, and San Francisco. Only through oral histories could I really understand how feminist activism shaped and was shaped by geographical location. For example, only in talking to Memphis feminists about their lives and work did I actually learn how important southern identity was to them and to their activism. But even more importantly, I found that archives could and would only tell me part of the histories I was looking to share and analyze. None of the people in my book are media ‘stars,’ but they were the rank-and-file movers of the women’s movement for equality and liberation. I could only find them by looking locally, and then by moving out of the archives and into people’s homes, coffeehouses, libraries, and other places I collected oral histories.”

Sophie Gilmore. © Sophie Gilmore. Do not reproduce without permission.

I learned that Stephanie uses oral history not only to study past feminists, but also to engage in her own activist work. After spending nearly a decade teaching, Stephanie became interested in issues outside the classroom — namely, how students react to and combat sexual violence in their everyday lives. At the moment, she is especially interested in understanding the gap between government and nonprofit research, which suggests approximately 1 in 5 women will experience sexual assault while at school, and Cleary Center documents, which report that little to no sexual assault occurs on university and college campuses. In order to understand the disconnect, Stephanie works with women, students of color and LGBTQ students who did not report their sexual assault experiences. She told me she did this for two reasons in particular, “On one hand, institutions can learn a great deal from these students and can start addressing the problem of underreporting sexual violence. But I also seek to elevate the voices of those who have been most marginalized in and beyond the academy. There is a tremendous amount of attention devoted to the issue of sexual violence on college campuses, and we are wise to listen to those who have been the victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence as we contemplate and enact solutions.” Stephanie also wanted to let readers know that she gives lectures and workshops on this topic. She welcomes anyone interested in learning more about her programs to contact her through her website, www.stephaniegilmorephd.com.

The more I learned about Stephanie, the clearer it became why OHA director Cliff Kuhn contacted her about the OHR position. When I asked how she felt about coming to work with the journal, she responded, “I’m delighted to think even more explicitly and historically about the connections between social movement activism and oral history as a legacy of social justice work. I owe so much of my own professional success to feminist, queer, and antiracist activism AND to oral history – and I have been able to learn and see how activism and history are intimately related. Editing a journal is a tremendous amount of work, but the opportunity to continue shaping the field of oral history as it relates to social justice activism is thrilling!”

She certainly sounded excited to join the OHR, but what exactly did she have in mind for the journal? “What’s in store? We will continue the short-form initiative that Kathy Nasstrom initiated – it is so exciting to hear from scholars, activists, and oral history practitioners about new developments, theoretical questions, and the like – things that are not quite a traditional article-length publication but relevant and important nonetheless. But we will also be taking on a couple of new ventures.”

Such as?

“The 50th anniversary of the Oral History Association is upon us, and Teresa Barnett has agreed to help facilitate a special section of the journal to commemorate; It is a good time to see where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are going. We are also calling for papers for a OHR special issue, “Listening to and Learning from LGBTQ Lives.” The immediate interest in the call suggests that we are onto a good idea here! And of course, we are always excited to see what our readers submit –  so if people have ideas for short- or long-form articles, roundtables, or the like, please let me know!”

All in all readers, I think we’re in for a great time. Welcome to the team, Stephanie!

Caitlin Tyler-Richards is the editorial/media assistant at the Oral History Review. When not sharing profound witticisms at @OralHistReview, Caitlin pursues a PhD in African History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research revolves around the intersection of West African history, literature and identity construction, as well as a fledgling interest in digital humanities. Before coming to Madison, Caitlin worked for the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.

The Oral History Review, published by the Oral History Association, is the U.S. journal of record for the theory and practice of oral history. Its primary mission is to explore the nature and significance of oral history and advance understanding of the field among scholars, educators, practitioners, and the general public. Follow them on Twitter at @oralhistreview, like them on Facebook, add them to your circles on Google Plus, follow them on Tumblr, listen to them on Soundcloud, or follow their latest OUPblog posts via email or RSS to preview, learn, connect, discover, and study oral history.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Welcome to the OHR, Stephanie Gilmore appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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By Caitlin Tyler-Richards

Over the past few months, the Oral History Review has become rather demanding. In February, we asked readers to experiment with the short form article. A few weeks ago, our upcoming interim editor Dr. Stephanie Gilmore sent out a call for papers for our special Winter/Spring 2016 issue, “Listening to and for LGBTQ Lives.” Now, we’d like you to also take over our OUPBlog posting duties.

Well, “take over” might be a hyperbole. However, we have always hoped to use this and our other social media platforms to encourage discussion within the oral history discipline, and to spark exchanges with those working with oral histories outside the field. We like to imagine that through our podcasts, interviews and book reviews, we have brought about some conversations or inspired new ways to approach oral history. However, we can do better.

Towards that end, we are putting out a “call for blog posts” for this summer. These posts should fall in line with the aforementioned goal to promote the engagement between and beyond those in oral history field. Like our hardcopy counterpart, we are especially interested in posts that explore oral history in the digital age. As you might have gathered, we thrive on puns and the occasional, outdated pop culture reference. These are even more appreciated when coupled with clean and thoughtful insights into oral history work.

We are currently looking for posts between 500-800 words and 15-20 minutes of audio or video. Though, because we operate on the wonderful worldwide web, we are open to negotiation in terms of media and format. We should also stress that while we welcome posts that showcase a particular project, we do not want to serve as landing page for anyone’s kickstarter.

Please direct any additional questions, pitches or submissions to the social media coordinator, Caitlin Tyler-Richards, at ohreview[at]gmail[dot]com. You may also message us on Twitter (@oralhistreview) or Facebook.

We can’t wait to see what you all have to say.

Caitlin Tyler-Richards is the editorial/media assistant at the Oral History Review. When not sharing profound witticisms at @OralHistReview, Caitlin pursues a PhD in African History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research revolves around the intersection of West African history, literature and identity construction, as well as a fledgling interest in digital humanities. Before coming to Madison, Caitlin worked for the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.

The Oral History Review, published by the Oral History Association, is the U.S. journal of record for the theory and practice of oral history. Its primary mission is to explore the nature and significance of oral history and advance understanding of the field among scholars, educators, practitioners, and the general public. Follow them on Twitter at @oralhistreview, like them on Facebook, add them to your circles on Google Plus, follow them on Tumblr, listen to them on Soundcloud, or follow the latest OUPblog posts via email or RSS to preview, learn, connect, discover, and study oral history.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Retro Microphone. © Kohlerphoto via iStockphoto.

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By Caitlin Tyler-Richards

In November 2012, a thread appeared on the H-Net Oral history listserv with the enticing subject line “experimental uses of oral history.” Amid assorted student projects and artistic explorations, two projects in particular caught my eye: the VOCES Oral History Project and the Freedom Mosaic. As we work towards our upcoming special issue on Oral History in the Digital Age, I’ve been mulling over oral historians negotiate online spaces, and how the Internet and related advancing technologies can inspire, but also challenge the manner in which they share their scholarship. I believe the VOCES Oral History Project and the Freedom Mosaic offer two distinct paths historians may take in carving out online space, and raise an interesting issue regarding content versus aesthetics.

Based out of the University of Texas at Austin, the VOCES Oral History Project (previously the US Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project) launched the spring of 1999 in response to the dearth of Latin@s experiences in WWII scholarship. Since its inception, the project has conducted over 500 interviews, which have spawned a variety of media, from mini-documentaries to the play Voices of Valor by James E. Garcia. My personal favorite is the Narratives Newspaper (1999-2004), a bi-annually printed collection of stories written by journalism students, based on interviews conducted with the WWII veterans. Thanks to a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, in 2009 VOCES expanded its project to include the Vietnam and Korean Wars — hence the name change.

VOCES does not have the most technologically innovative or visually attractive website; it relies on text and links much more than contemporary web design generally allows. However, it still serves as a strong, online base for the project, allowing the staff to maintain and occasionally expand the project, and facilitates greater access to the public. For instance, VOCES has transferred the Narratives Newspaper stories into an indexed, online archive, one which they continue to populate with new reports featuring personal photos. The website also helps to sustain the project by inviting the public to participate, encouraging them to sign up for VOCES’ volunteer database or conduct their own interviews. They continue to offer a print subscription to a biannual Narratives Newsletter, which speaks to the manner in which they straddle the line between print and digital. It’s understandable given their audience (i.e. war veterans), yet I wonder if it also hinders a full transition into the digital realm.

The second project that intrigued me was the Freedom Mosaic, a collaboration between the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, CNN and the Ford Foundation to share “individual stories that changed history” from major civil and human rights movements. The Freedom Mosaic is a professionally-designed “microsite” that opens with an attractive, interactive interface made up interviewees’ pictures, which viewers can click on to access multimedia profiles of civil and human rights participants. Each profile includes something like a player’s card for the interviewee on the left side of the page — imagine a title like, “Visionary”, a full body picture, an inspiring quote, personal photos, and perhaps a map. On the right side, viewers can click “Play Story” to watch a mini-documentary on the subject, including interview clips. Viewers can also click the tab “More” at the bottom to bring up a brief text biography, additional interviews and interview transcripts.

The Freedom Mosaic is not a standard oral history project. According to Dr. Clifford Kuhn, who served as the consulting historian and interviewer, and introduced the site to H-NetOralHist listserv, “The idea was to develop a dynamic web site that departed from many of the archivally-oriented civil rights-themes web sites, in an attempt to especially appeal to younger users, roughly 15-30 years old.” On one hand, I greatly approve of beautifully designed projects that trick the innocent Internet explorer into learning something — and I think the Freedom Mosaic could succeed. However, I’m bothered by the site’s dearth of… history. Especially when sharing contemporary stories like that of immigration activist Jessica Colotl, I would have liked a bit more background on immigration in the United States than her brief bio provides.

VOCES and the Freedom Mosaic are excellent examples of how historians may establish a space online, amid the cat memes and indie movie blogs, for academic research. While I have my concerns, I believe both sites succeed in fulfilling their projects’ respective goals, whether that be archiving or eye-catching. However, I would ask you, lovely readers: Is there a template between VOCES’ text heavy archive and the Freedom Mosaic’s dazzling pentagons that might better serve in sharing oral history? What would a rubric for “successful oral history sites” look like? Or should every site be tailor fit to each project?

To the comments! The more you share, the better the eventual OHR website will look.

Caitlin Tyler-Richards is the editorial/ media assistant at the Oral History Review. When not sharing profound witticisms at @OralHistReview, Caitlin pursues a PhD in African History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research revolves around the intersection of West African history, literature and identity construction, as well as a fledgling interest in digital humanities. Before coming to Madison, Caitlin worked for the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.

The Oral History Review, published by the Oral History Association, is the U.S. journal of record for the theory and practice of oral history. Its primary mission is to explore the nature and significance of oral history and advance understanding of the field among scholars, educators, practitioners, and the general public. Follow them on Twitter at @oralhistreview and like them on Facebook to preview the latest from the Review, learn about other oral history projects, connect with oral history centers across the world, and discover topics that you may have thought were even remotely connected to the study of oral history. Keep an eye out for upcoming posts on the OUPblog for addendum to past articles, interviews with scholars in oral history and related fields, and fieldnotes on conferences, workshops, etc.

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By Caitlin Tyler-Richards

When Superstorm Sandy hit the United States’ east coast in late October, I was struck by the way in which oral historians and other like-minded academics responded to the ensuing chaos. This was not the first time I had seen oral history interact with natural disaster; one of the first articles I prepped for our Twitter feed was KUT News’ “Forged in Flames: An Oral History of the Labor Day Wildfires,” a multi-media documentation of the wildfires that overtook Texas in September 2011. However, to see the response in real time was a completely different experience.

Almost immediately, social media like the Storify stream set up by the Brooklyn Historical Society (@brooklynhistory) and hundreds of unbelieveable — and just plain untrue — instagram photos coalesced into a haphazard digital archive. More cohesive and comprehensive accounts, like Mike Chaban’s “The Committee to Save New York: An Oral History of Hurricane Sandy” and Carol Hill Albert’s “Coney Island Stories: Category One” appeared soon after. This rapid fire, occasionally heart-rending coverage led me to think more deeply on how oral historians in particular address major, traumatic events like Superstorm Sandy. Does one go to the damaged areas with the intention of conducting official, project-motivated Oral History Research (TM); or are the goals more personal and therapeutic? How, if at all, do one’s tactics change when conducting interviews with recent trauma survivors?

I didn’t have to go far for further insight. In addition to serving as our media review editor, Jennifer Abraham Cramer is the director of Louisiana State University’s T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History. She has worked on a number of oral history projects, including one on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. We started off with what I thought was an easy question, “How did you become involved in post-Katrina research?”:

I was very reluctant to become involved with post-Katrina research, initially. Starting an oral history project in 2005 didn’t feel right to me—my husband’s family is from New Orleans, and we were still very much going through Katrina and Rita.  Doing oral histories of a current event didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time. Plus, I wondered, “Why spend time interviewing people about recent events when people who witnessed more distant events that are equally significant to our nation’s history are passing away, and taking their stories and memories with them?” I was also concerned about legal ramifications (ongoing court cases, criminal investigations, insurance claims, etc.) where respondents were discussing very recent events. Then, of course, the big issue with doing oral history projects around crisis events is that you don’t want to further traumatize your interviewee, exploit them, or paint them as helpless victims.

Despite her reservations, Cramer and the Williams Center decided to get involved with post-Katrina and Rita research, largely to ensure that the numerous oral history projects already in the works would follow the Oral History Association’sprinciples and best practices. If people were going into the field anyway, the Williams Center could ensure that the interviews they conducted “would be well-done, archived, and available to researchers.”

Given the concerns she expressed, I was curious to know what, if any obstacles Cramer faced during interviews, and if these challenges forced her to change her interview strategy. Here, especially as a historian-in-training, I was intrigued by the unique challenges post-Katrina research posed, and the manner in which Cramer thought through them:

The two big challenges were documenting recent events and conducting interviews with people who had recently experienced trauma.  So firstly, using oral history methodology to document recent events is a bit challenging because of the different ways that people recall recent and past events. The brain has integrated causal relationships for distant happenings, but is more focused on the rich details of the “how” and “what” when it comes to more recent memories, thus affecting the way that respondents answer questions.  Stories of recent events are a bit more scattered and thick with details, so you have to adjust your interviewing methodology.

Secondly, you have the challenge of interviewing people who have recently experienced crises. Trauma in oral histories is nothing new. For example, in the recording of a life narrative from a person who grew up in the 1930s and 40s in South Louisiana, it is likely that their story would include experiences with the 1927 Flood and the Great Depression. If they went to war, then you may have wartime violence and PTSD in a post-war America gearing up for a possible nuclear attack. Any oral historian conducting a life narrative interview will most definitely re-live a trauma with their interviewee. Most of these stories come naturally in the flow of the interview and are not necessarily the focus of the interview itself, and the narrator has integrated the trauma into their overall life story.

What was different about the Katrina and Rita interviews was that interviewees and even some interviewers were still living through the crises they were trying to document, and had not yet integrated those new hardships into their life story. This a major part of healing from PTSD and takes time.  Thus, it became imperative to learn about the best way to conduct oral histories in the aftermath of crisis.  I consulted my fellow oral historians located in the Gulf Coast region, and also sought advice from Mary Marshall Clark who had extensive experience documenting recent trauma with her project out of Columbia University, “September 11, Oral History, Memory and Narrative Project.”  I also consulted professionals in the field of psychology about PTSD and interviewing. From all of this, I was able to outline some ethical considerations for interviewers here on the ground.

Taken at a reception held in 2007 to honor the interviewees who participated in the “Voices in the Storm Oral History Project,” sponsored by the Julien Poydras Museum Arts Council in Pointe Coupee Parish. Those photographed include 8 interviewees and 3 interviewers, including interviewee Jen Abraham Cramer (far right). The project documents stories of those who relocated from New Orleans to New Roads, Louisiana, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. New Roads is one of the oldest settlements in Louisiana and has long-standing historic and cultural ties to the city of New Orleans. The Williams Center consulted in the design and implementation of the project and houses the collections at the Center in the LSU Libraries Special Collections.

While recognizing that new memories, especially those of recent trauma survivors, carry a raw, emotional and largely unprocessed weight to them, Cramer did not have any illusions regarding the healing power her interviews might provide:

There is no doubt that story-telling can be therapeutic. But, we as oral historians are trained to document while therapists are trained in their field with entirely different goals. Oral historians record stories that offer experiential information in order to create primary sources that are preserved and made available to the public. It is wonderful when, through the course of an oral history interview, we can help the interviewee heal as perhaps part of their therapy, but I believe that it’s best for oral historians to stick to the overall goal of documenting — while being especially careful with respondents who have recently experienced trauma.

I closed our e-exchange with the most pragmatic question, “Any advice for those conducting oral history projects following natural disasters?” — the answer to which I hope everyone will print out and tape to their walls:

Basically the guidelines I mentioned earlier: It may be helpful to seek training from professionals in the field of psychology, if possible. For the purposes of our projects at the Center in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Red Cross provided lists of what not to say to survivors of disasters, which I in turn provided to interviewers. I encouraged interviewers to conduct life narratives so that the hurricane story was situated within a larger context—this included previous storm stories like Hurricane Betsy. I also encouraged them to stay away from asking about emotions and feelings, and to focus more on what the interviewee experienced and witnessed, yet to be compassionate when emotions arose. Interviewers were encouraged to honor the interviewees in some way—whether at a community event or in a final product given to the interviewees, and to include them in every step of the project.

Most importantly, the interviewers were encouraged to follow up on their interviews five years or ten years later to create a longitudinal documentation and commemoration. In addition, I incorporated Clark’s suggestions to ensure that interviewers have certain training and skills: the ability to connect emotionally to the narrator and to create a supportive listening environment; to be concerned, but not intrusive; to connect interviewees with each other; and to ask questions that may help the interviewee with explanatory stories.

As always, we’ll close here by turning it over to our readers. Have any of you conducted research following natural disasters and have insights you’d like to share? Or do you have a project in mind and need more advice on how to tackle some of the obstacles Cramer mentioned? To the comments, everyone!

Jennifer Abraham Cramer is the Director of Louisiana State University’s T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, where she manages multiple ongoing staff and partner projects and oversees the processing, preservation, digitization, and public access of the Center’s 5,000 hours of audio recordings.   She is the creator and producer of the Center’s podcast, “What Endures,”  and currently serves as the media review editor for The Oral History Review.

Caitlin Tyler-Richards is the editorial/ media assistant at the Oral History Review. When not sharing profound witticisms at @OralHistReview, Caitlin pursues a PhD in African History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research revolves around the intersection of West African history, literature and identity construction, as well as a fledgling interest in digital humanities. Before coming to Madison, Caitlin worked for the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.

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