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(Virtual) OHA Annual Meeting Preview

The Oral History Association’s annual meeting is right around the corner, with the theme “The Quest for Democracy: One Hundred Years of Struggle.” While we aren’t traveling to Baltimore as planned, we do hope to see colleagues and friends, new and old, over Zoom and in SecondLife. Let us know what you are looking forward to at this year’s event.

From the editors

Normally this time of year, your OHR editors are packing their bags, sending invitations for our editorial board meeting, shipping books for review, and highlighting the sessions we plan to attend in our OHA annual meeting program. But 2020 is not your typical year. This year, we will send Zoom links for the editorial board meeting and still highlight the program. But like many of our colleagues in the oral history community, we will join the meeting virtually, and we hope to see you remotely too. 

Typically, OHA’s annual meeting is a professional highlight of the year, not only for the chance to hear the latest scholarship in the field, but also because the OHA membership is comprised of the most welcoming, diverse, and talented group of people.  In short, we go to see our friends and make new ones. This year, there will be no receptions or meet-ups in the hotel bar. Instead we will socialize in SecondLife and participate in presentations in Zoom.

The OHR editorial team will be scouting out articles and blog posts, just like we always do. Usually you could find one of us sitting at the OHR table in the vendor’s hall, giving out books for review. It won’t be quite the same this year, but you can still give us a wave when you see us, and choose your books virtually! And please pitch us your ideas and let us know what you are working on. 

We will also participate in sessions. Here’s when and where you can find us:

Oral Histories of Science and the AIP/NASA Heliophysics Oral History Project
Tuesday, October 20, 1:30 to 3:00 pm Zoom: Room 3
Roundtable Panelists: Joanna B. Behrman, American Institute of Physics Jon B. Phillips, American Institute of Physics Ryan Hearty, American Institute of Physics Samantha Thompson, Smithsonian Institute Chair: David B. Zierler, American Institute of Physics
Commentators: David Caruso, Science History Institute, Kristine Harper, Florida State University

Telling COVID’s Stories: Implications for the Field (panel focused on OHR’s special section on Oral History and COVID-19).
Wednesday, October 21, 3:30 to 5:00 pm Zoom: Room 9
Roundtable Panelists: Janneken Smucker, West Chester University Abigail Perkiss, Kean University Anna F. Kaplan, DC Oral History Collaborative Stephen Sloan, Baylor University Jason Kelly, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

Disaster Testimonies: Climate Change, Natural Hazards, and the Lived Experience of Extreme Weather 
Thursday, October 22, 11:30 to 1:00 pm Zoom: Room 3
Roundtable Panelists: Deb Anderson, Monash University Abigail Perkiss, Kean University Carmen Bolt, American University

Multi-Year Digital Oral History Project Design in the College Classroom. OHA Annual Meeting Mini-workshop
Friday, October 23, 11:30 to 1:00 pm Zoom: Room 5
Workshop Leaders: Janneken Smucker, West Chester University, Charles Hardy, West Chester University, and WCU students Bryce Evans, Kayla DiPaolo, and Nicholas Heydeman

Janneken Smucker, David Caruso, and Abby Perkiss serve as co-editors of the Oral History Review.

Featured image from simpler times, at the 2018 OHA Annual Meeting in Montreal. 

Uninvited Guests, or Zoom Bombing the Oral History Interview

In OHR‘s ongoing series investigating how COVID-19 is changing the field of oral history, this post by Shu Wan discusses the implications of “digitizing” the interview process itself, with remote interviews conducted over web cams and microphones. What happens when uninvited guests appear in the interview?

By Shu Wan

During the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of individual historians and GLAM institutions became interested in documenting the traumatic experiences of American citizens during the crisis. Due to the risk of exposure brought by face-to-face communication, many of these projects were conducted on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) platforms, such as Zoom, Bluejeans Meeting, and Skype. Thanks to technological innovations in the past decade, oral historians could remotely record oral history from home. VoIP and other remote interviewing platforms demonstrate the potential of digital technologies in advancing oral history practices.

Almost a decade ago, oral historians launched the Oral History in the Digital Age initiative to promote the use of digital tools and devices in recording, processing, preserving, and exhibiting oral history raw materials and interpretations. The current proliferation of remote oral history practices, in a field that typically prioritized face-to-face interviews, may indicate the burgeoning of an “Oral History in the Digital Age 2.0”, characterized by the “digitization” of the relationship between oral historians and their human subjects, rather than of the media files themselves. Just as with the digitization of audio and the dissemination of interviews over the internet, digitization of the interview process also requires examination of our ethical responsibilities as oral historians.

In order to document the experiences of Chinese living in the United States during the pandemic, I opted to interview remotely. I wanted to record the Chinese nationals’ and immigrants’ vulnerability to the dual-threat of epidemic and xenophobia, so I conducted oral history interviews with some Chinese college students and residents in Iowa City. While interviewing one of them several weeks ago, our virtual meeting was interrupted by an uninvited guest’s posting of a couple of memes and pictures. With the concern of my interviewees’ information security and privacy, I had no choice but to end the video conversation. In light of increasing coverage of similar hacking behavior in the media, now known as “Zoom-bombing,” I am not alone in encountering uninvited guests’ harassment. However, I may be one of the first to report its incidence while recording a remote oral history interview.

Reflecting on this experience, I could identify at least two potential ethical concerns surrounding the new procedure of conducting oral history interviews online. A first primary concern for oral historians is the protection of interviewees’ privacy. For the interviewees who desire to remain anonymous, the disclosure of face, sound, or other identifiable information to the third party may place them at high risk. Thankfully, services like Zoom have responded to uninvited guests and enabled password protection and other means of eliminating intrusions.

We must also take into account how to process those interviews with unexpected interruptions by those uninvited guests. In my case, the bomber only sent irrelevant—rather than obscene—images and words. However, once some harmful or disrespectful information interfered with the recording of the interview, how should we process the original materials for further research and preservation? Should such intrusions be kept or edited out? This dilemma may provoke ethical debates surrounding the integrity and completion of archiving and preserving oral history materials.

The pandemic has encouraged many oral historians to supplement the traditional in-person interviewing routine with virtual meetings. However, before taking the next step, we must consider the ethical implications of the “new normal,” assessing what taking the interview remote will mean for the process, the archive, and future research.

Shu Wan is a Ph.D. student in the History Department at the University at Buffalo. Before matriculating in the program this fall, he studied as a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Iowa.

OHR Presents Special Section on Oral History and COVID-19

OHR solicited essays on the implications of interviewing during and about COVID-19. We are excited to publish these online today, and in print in the upcoming issue.

By Janneken Smucker, Abigail Perkiss, and David Caruso

Back in April, which simultaneously feels like two days ago and two years ago, the OHR editorial team contemplated how the lockdown, social distancing, and pandemic would affect our field, including its methods and ethics. While confronting current events is typically not the strong suit of academic publishing—due to the slow pace of reflective writing, peer review, and production cycles—we nevertheless felt it imperative that the journal contribute to discussions of whether, when, and how to document COVID-19 and its myriad effects via oral history. We turned to colleagues who we knew were thinking hard about this topic, perhaps interviewing about the pandemic, perhaps choosing to wait. This selection of essays now serves as a snapshot in time, as the articles were completed in late May, prior to the killing of George Floyd, prior to the surge in COVID-19 cases through much of the South and Southwest, and prior to the intense ongoing debates about whether and how to re-open schools and universities.  Somehow, it is now September; in some ways we have adapted to the “new normal” of the pandemic era, and in many ways we have not. 

We encourage you to join the discussion of how oral history can help document our current crises. Let us know in the comments, or by pitching a guest post, how you are navigating oral history amid pandemic. In addition to these articles, we are pleased to share resources for oral history and COVID-19, drawn from the footnotes provided by our authors.  

We are grateful to our publisher, Taylor and Francis/ Routledge, for generously making this content, and all COVID-19 related content, free from paywalls. Follow the links in the table of contents below to the full articles. 

Editors’ Introduction
Abigail Perkiss, Janneken Smucker, and David Caruso

Behind the ‘Curve’: COVID-19, Infodemic, and Oral History
Stephen Sloan

First, Do No Harm: Tread Carefully Where Oral History, Trauma, and Current Catastrophes Intersect
Jennifer Cramer

Cultivating Support while Venturing into Interviewing During COVID-19
Anna Kaplan

Socially Engaged Oral History Pedagogy Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic
Anna Lee and Kimberly Springer

The COVID-19 Oral History Project: Some Preliminary Notes from the Field
Jason Kelly

Journalism, COVID-19, and the Opportunity for Oral History
Evan Faulkenbury

Leading in the Time of Corona
Allison Tracy-Taylor   

Featured image: Stewart and Holmes Wholesale Drug Co. employees on 3rd Avenue during the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic. (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, SOC0394).                                                                                                          

5 Questions About Folksongs of Another America

We ask authors of books reviewed in Oral History Review to answer 5 questions about why we should read their books. In our latest installment of the series, James P. Leary discusses his book Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946

Read Bud Kliment’s full review here and in the forthcoming issue 48.2 of Oral History Review. 

What’s it about and why does it matter?

From 1937 through 1946 Sidney Robertson, Alan Lomax, and Helene Stratman-Thomas—fieldworkers for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress—recorded roughly 2000 songs and tunes in more than twenty-five languages from performers in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin: Ojibwe fiddlers, Swiss yodelers, Croatian tamburitzans, Norwegian psalmodikon quartets, Oneida hymn-singers, Irish lumberjack balladeers, Welsh choruses, Bohemian brass bands, Ho-Chunk hand drummers, and much more. Yet for seven decades only the songs in English were published, implicitly favoring a monolingual, mono-cultural false impression over a decidedly plural reality. Folksongs of Another America reveals at last the long-hidden diversity and depth of the Upper Midwest’s folk musical traditions through digitally restored sound recordings and film footage; still photographs; transcribed, translated, and annotated lyrics; and glimpses of performers’ lives and communities. At once a restoration and a critique, this print/media production not only testifies to the Upper Midwest’s historical contributions to America’s folk cultural legacy, but also reassesses prevailing conceptions of American folk music and song.

How does oral history contribute to your book?

I’m a folklorist who was born and raised in a small northwestern Wisconsin farming, logging, and resort community wherein peoples of varied Native and European descent have long intermingled. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I encountered a remarkable range of local musical traditions through live radio, wedding dances, powwows, taverns, and dance halls. In the 1970s, struck by the complicated ways in which my neighbors sustained, adapted, combined, and created cultural traditions within regional and historical contexts, I began conducting archival research, ethnography, and tape-recorded interviews. The musicians whose repertoires and reminiscences I documented were all deeply indebted to performers from prior generations. Several of them had even been recorded by Library of Congress fieldworkers during the 1937-1946 span, while others either witnessed those sessions or knew the performers. Their powerful experiences and oral testimony inspired more interviews and related research incrementally resulting in Folksongs of Another America.     

What do you like about using oral history as a methodology?

Published historical sources regarding the life of an “ordinary” person typically reveal only the few spare facts found in public records and local newspapers. Occasionally the latter might report that a person loved singing old songs or played for generations of wedding dances, but to learn more you must ask someone who knows. Since the mid-1970s I’ve had the pleasure of asking scores of venerable, veteran singers and musicians about their life histories or artistic autobiographies as performers. In 1989, seventy-six year old Sylvester Romel—from whom Alan Lomax recorded a song in 1938 about a Polish immigrant mill worker’s misfortunes—told me that he’d learned the song from his mother, Anna Losinski Romel, while they were milking cows: “She was a good singer. She did know, oh, about a hundred songs. And not from papers, she had that in her head. Just like we did . . . That’s the only way.” Such first-hand accounts are the only way to acquire those missing folk musical details, and collectively Syl Romel and kindred performers, through eloquent interviews, provided the small essential fragments from which I was able to form a big regional picture.

Why will fellow oral historians be interested in your book?

Bud Kliment’s OHR review of my book sagely calls attention to the close relationship between folksong and life history recordings that emerged in the 1930s through the Works Progress Administration, especially the Federal Writers’ Project. The overarching goal of Depression-era songcatchers and oral historians was to document America’s many voices through the experiences of diverse working people expressed in their songs, tunes, stories, and vernacular observations. My efforts draw on a series of interviews augmented by contemporary digital tools—including sound restoration, genealogical databases, and newspaper search engines—to extend and illuminate nearly forgotten oral historical evidence establishing the enduring contributions of Indigenous and immigrant performers to American life and culture.

What is the one thing that you most want readers to remember about the book?

When Folksongs of Another America was published, I was heartened by many thoughtful reviews, including one from the Los Angeles Times confessing astonishment at the English, French Canadian, German, Irish, Norwegian, Ojibwe, Swedish, Swiss, and other strands suffusing the repertoires of woods workers: “Who knew that the songs of Wisconsin lumberjacks were as odd and singular as the stuff being made in Appalachia or the Mississippi delta?” As a hardcore populist, pluralist, and progressive from the Upper Midwest, I want readers to know that this region is as varied and worthy of attention as any other, and its essence can be found in the lives, words, and songs of its people.

5 Questions About Everybody’s Problem: The War on Property in Eastern North Carolina

We ask authors of books reviewed in Oral History Review to answer 5 questions about why we should read their books. In our latest installment of the series, Karen Hawkins discusses her book Everybody’s Problem: The War on Poverty in Eastern North Carolina.

Read Thomas Saylor’s review here and in issue 47.2 of OHR. 

What’s it about and why does it matter?

Everybody’s Problem details the bold and largely successful efforts of white and Black leaders in predominately rural Eastern North Carolina to work together for the first time to address the main causes of poverty in their community during the 1960s and 1970s. Despite early resistance from local conservatives (including the KKK) as well as increasingly restrictive federal guidelines, their efforts spanned the period before, during, and after President Johnson’s national War on Poverty. Centered in Craven County, few antipoverty programs in the nation lasted so long or witnessed the level of local cooperation as seen there. I argue that this was made possible by the large presence and influence of moderates in the community to keep the program alive out of a shared commitment to provide more economic opportunity (namely well-paying jobs) for the most disadvantaged residents, which they saw as improving the area’s economic strength for all. By the early 1980s, Craven County was described as the “jewel of the East” in part due to the growth of high-skilled jobs that employed historic numbers of whites and Blacks alike. Although this is a mostly local history, Craven County’s size, demographics and preference for local control were then and now far from unique in the nation and, therefore, can add much to our understanding of how local people of different backgrounds and even preferred methods can meet and cooperate to help address issues of poverty and inequity in their communities out of a shared interest. Arguably, the lessons of the book have only become more relevant today as both local communities and the nation as a whole have experienced growing and never-before-seen divides, mistrust, and isolation that tend to hamstring discussion, cooperation, and solutions to social and economic issues.

KAREN HAWKINS, EVERYBODY’S PROBLEM: THE WAR ON POVERTY IN EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA, GAINESVILLE: UNIVERSITY PRESS OF FLORIDA, 2017. 367 PP.

How does oral history contribute to your book?

The book relies on several oral history collections including the New Bern Oral History Project (catalogued by UNC-Chapel Hill), interviews of local people and federal officials (from the Office of Economic Opportunity) conducted by North Carolina Fund staff who provided more hands-on guidance and private funding to the Craven County anti-poverty program (catalogued by UNC-Chapel Hill), and the Duke University Behind the Veil Oral History Project. I also conducted oral history interviews with eleven members of the Craven County community with regard to their involvement in the local anti-poverty program and/or the concurrent local civil rights movement.

What do you like about using oral history as a methodology?

Above all, I really appreciated how the oral history interviews allowed me to understand and have access to the personal feelings and relationships between so many local community members (from businessmen to civil rights leaders to housewives) as well to see how one’s view could change from one interview to a subsequent one a few months later based on the context. The North Carolina Fund was perhaps most helpful in that its staff conducted multiple interviews with individuals both for and against the anti-poverty program during the War on Poverty. With all the oral history collections, I was also able to learn and understand more about the day-to-day challenges and inner-workings of the local anti-poverty program and the general culture and philosophy of leadership in Craven County that could not be found in any other sources including local newspaper articles.

Why will fellow oral historians be interested in your book?

They may be interested in how the interviews were used in the book as well as the location of a wide number of oral histories among a diverse group of white and Black North Carolinians who share their personal views on and experiences with race, poverty, and politics during the highly contentious and changing 1960s and 1970s.

What is the one thing that you most want readers to remember about the book?

Positive and lasting change, whether to address the causes of poverty or another issue, occurs most successfully when individuals of goodwill from a representative variety of backgrounds, views, experiences, and status are invited to participate and can see the benefits that change will have for themselves and their fellow citizens. 

5 Questions About Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West

We ask authors of books reviewed in Oral History Review to answer 5 questions about why we should read their books. In our latest installment of the series, Sarah Alisabeth Fox discusses Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West. 

Read Holly Werner-Thomas’ review of Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West online and in issue 47.2 of OHR. 

What’s it about and why does it matter?

Downwind is the story of ordinary people in the southwestern United States who came to realize their communities were impacted by radiation exposure during the Cold War. This exposure took many forms; my book is concerned primarily with atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in Nevada and the uranium industry which developed in the Four Corners region to support nuclear weapons development. The Indigenous and settler residents of this region couldn’t see, smell, or taste radiological contamination as it entered their food supply, their water, and their communities, but many of them did observe the towering clouds of nuclear tests and the material changes uranium mining imposed on familiar landscapes. When illnesses and deformities began to appear in livestock and wildlife, then in human populations, many locals began to wonder about possible linkages to the uranium industry or nuclear testing. Some began listing and mapping the illnesses and losses they observed in their families, workplaces, and neighborhoods, and exchanging information with friends and neighbors. Toxic exposure is difficult to prove; years may pass between exposure and the emergence of physical symptoms, a phenomenon Rob Nixon has called “slow violence.” These people were attempting to make slow violence visible. Their observations coalesced in practices of popular epidemiology, which utilized local and experiential knowledge to document patterns of illness and environmental change that eluded formally trained scientists and technicians. Individually, these stories are frequently discounted as “anecdotal” evidence. Considered together, in conversation with other forms of archival and scientific evidence, they provide ample documentation of a devastating betrayal of people and places in the name of national security and technological development.

As knowledge-holders in these communities age and succumb to illnesses most likely related to radiation exposure, this history is beginning to recede from people’s awareness. Many of the individuals I interviewed for my book have since passed away. The book is no replacement for their stories, but hopefully it serves to amplify them, particularly given the resurgent interest in uranium extraction, nuclear power, and nuclear weapons development. Numerous radiologically contaminated Cold War sites continue to pose health risks across the western United States (and the rest of the world), and much is still unknown about the long-term health implications of low-level radiation exposure for people in these communities and their descendants. The federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Program is scheduled to sunset in 2022, but we still have a long way to go to achieve justice for these communities, deemed national sacrifices in the pursuit of U.S. nuclear hegemony. This is particularly true for Indigenous communities like the Western Shoshone, the Navajo Nation, the Southern Paiute, and New Mexico’s Pueblo nations, who are still dealing with the violence of displacement, treaty violations, and ongoing contamination related to nuclear development.

How does oral history contribute to your book?

Oral history methods and content are fundamental to Downwind, but I want to clarify, the book isn’t an oral history collection, per se. It is a book that relies on oral history evidence. Excellent oral history collections do exist for anyone who is interested in reading, writing about, or teaching those important records. I recommend the Navajo Uranium Miner Oral History and Photography Project’s Memories Come to Us in the Rain and the Wind (Red Sun Press, 1997), Carole Gallagher’s American Ground Zero (MIT Press, 1993), Trisha Pritikin’s The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice (University Press of Kansas, 2020), and the University of Utah Marriott Library Downwinders Archive online oral history collection, which is growing all the time.

When I began research for this project in 2005, I was hoping to document the way people living downwind of the Nevada Proving Ground (today, the Nevada National Security Site) developed an understanding of how their own lives, communities, and foodsheds were impacted by nuclear tests in their region. Carole Gallagher’s book was an incredible starting place: I spent a lot of time poring over the oral histories she c

ollected in the late 1980s to get an initial sense of how people in the region conceptualized and relayed this history. I also started gathering archival records that contained first-person testimony from downwinders, including letters to elected officials, legal and congressional testimony and newspaper articles spanning the 1950s – 1990s. Before I conducted my own interviews, I spent time analyzing these printed downwinder accounts, utilizing folklore methodologies to map prevalent themes, motifs, phrasings, and narrative arcs. I knew that downwinder stories were composed of more than individual memories and experiences; they also incorporated community knowledge, media revelations, and research that many of these individuals undertook years after the events they were describing. Folkloric analysis helped me to identify and delineate patterns, shared memories, and research-based knowledge.

When I began conducting my own oral history interviews, I faced several challenges. Many of the downwinders whose stories and testimony I had been studying had already passed away, and I surmised that many of the downwinder storytellers who remained might be weary of relating such painful stories. With that concern in mind, I began my oral history work by reaching out to some of the more public-facing downwinder activists. Once I had developed relationships and trust, these individuals graciously began connecting me to friends and fellow activists across the region. I utilized the same approach to gathering oral histories on uranium exposure. This slow, trust-based networking continued for years, and I still conduct oral history interviews related to radiation exposure today, six years after the book’s publication and 15 years after my work on this topic began.

Oral history interviews helped me to map a major historical episode as it played out across environments, communities, families, industries, and decades. The structure of Downwind derives from the dominant themes that surfaced in the oral histories I studied and gathered. The voices and stories from these interviews help readers to grapple with the local, human scale of historical episodes like the Cold War and political issues like nuclear weapons proliferation that are usually discussed in abstract national or global terms.

What do you like about using oral history as a methodology?

I love oral history as a methodology for its efficacy in mapping the contours of lived experience and relationships with place and community. As many educators, health professionals, and social scientists have argued, “people are experts on their own lives,” and I’m really interested in the ways that expertise is developed, organized, and relayed.

As many… have argued, “people are experts on their own lives,” and I’m really interested in the ways that expertise is developed, organized, and relayed.

Using oral history as a methodology in history, environmental studies, and public health research brings community expertise into academic conversations in ways that really shift the discussion. It’s simply not possible for academic researchers to apprehend the full picture of a complex event like nuclear weapons testing or uranium mining on their own. We need the stories of people local to that event to understand how it came to shape places, bodies, and perspectives at the scale of ordinary lives.

Why will fellow oral historians be interested in your book?

I think fellow oral historians will be interested in the book’s interdisciplinary approach, which engages oral history with folklore, archival research, and environmental studies methodologies in order to investigate questions of community memory, social movement formation, environmental change, and practices of popular and professional epidemiology. Methodological questions aside, this is a little-known and really important history that has been kept alive by ordinary people’s resilience and willingness to tell their stories, and I hope other oral historians are drawn to it for this reason also.

What is the one thing that you most want readers to remember about the book?

I’ll paraphrase a line from the book. All wars, no matter how abstract, “cold,” or distant they may seem, happen in places where people live, grow food, and raise children, and the effects of those wars linger in the soil, the bodies, and the memories of those who survive. As a society we need to reckon with this slow violence, and attend to the expertise of those who have experienced it firsthand.

5 Questions About: Family Portraits in Global Perspectives

We ask authors of books reviewed in Oral History Review to answer 5 questions about why we should read their books. In our latest installment of the series, Soledad Quartucci discusses her book Family Portraits in Global Perspectives: An Oral History Collection.

Read Michael Tomaselli’s review of Family Portraits in Global Perspectives online and in issue 47.2 of OHR.

What’s it about and why does it matter?

This book is a historical and family treasure. It was produced by first year students attending an international university in Southern California. As a historian and writing instructor, I wanted to create the type of assignment they would embrace with passion and with heart. I wanted them to fall in love with writing by writing with a personal purpose: interviewing an elder in their family and writing a family portrait of their life.

The student authors themselves offered the best evidence to why the book matters:

“In my writing 101 class, my professor assigned us to write a Family Oral History. I am glad she did because I had the wonderful opportunity to learn more about my African-American side. Through this oral history I got the chance to learn more about my father.” – Taylor H. on her father’s upbringing in the segregated South.

“I hope this oral history gives the reader at least some courage when you encounter difficulties. Without my uncle’s difficulties in life, I would have never known about this wonderful school, much less have traveled to study here. Moreover, I would have not had the chance to write about my uncle’s story and appreciate what my family has done before and even today. This is definitely the first paper I wrote for the real purpose of writing instead of just trying to make it perfect and hand it in on time. In order to let my siblings and my cousins learn about our wonderful grandparents and uncle, I have translated this oral history, and plan on expanding it next summer in Taiwan. Like it did for me, I hope you, too, are encouraged by my uncle’s life!” – Yu An Ma.

“I had always heard about the bombing of Hiroshima through the perspective of my great aunt, my grandpa’s little sister, who experienced it, but interviewing my grandfather made me realize the whole different kind of hardship that he went through, returning to his home in Hiroshima to find nothing and no one there, his search for his family alone, and having to work to provide for them. I think those experiences shaped who he is today, a humble, honest, hard-working, and confident man who is grateful for everything he has. His story, in a sense, made me reexamine my life, taking note of all the things I take for granted. My grandfather continues to encourage me to pursue what I love and to enjoy what I have, and I hope that sharing his story will be an inspiration for others to do the same.” – Ellie T.

“The war changed everything in my grandmother’s life. I could not imagine how many times she cried in her life. Before this oral history, my grandmother never mentioned a word about her suffering or about the war; instead, she always made me laugh with her funny stories during my youth. The interview was beyond my expectation about her sorrow. I cannot forget how her voice shuddered. I felt she did not like to recall those sad memories.” – Kenichi O.

“The interview took about two and a half hours because my grandma pauses to think a lot. I decided to interview her in particular because she had never shared her history with us, and she never exaggerates her stories. I thought I could get a real and pure image of life in Japan during the WWII period. Through this interview and Oral History assignment I was able to not only document and share an account of WWII that hasn’t been told, but also deepen our relationship as children of the Kurosaki family. I also greatly appreciate how I was able to understand and meet my grandpa who passed away before I could retain my memory. It is true that those who have suffered the most will become the happiest, because my grandma is living proof.” – Nobuko M.

“When I heard about this oral history project from my writing professor, the person who came up to my mind was my grandmother. It was because I did not know anything about her life before I was born although she is the closest to me among my grandparents. I didn’t even know her age! So I decided to interview my grandmother, my mother’s mother, and focus on her childhood. When I told this to my mother, she said, ‘You’re gonna interview your grandma? Hmm…you may not even be able to write 10 pages because her life has been so simple and normal.’ What my grandmother shared left both of us shocked. I am thankful for being given such an opportunity to connect with her more deeply.” – Nobuko N. 

“This oral history contains my grandmother’s story, my great-grandmother’s story, and my nation’s story; this is the Korean history of tears. As a Korean, I feel a strong responsibility for recording this history for my Korea. I will remember what happened, how people felt, how painful this history is, and what I need to do as a Korean-descendant.” – Yeji P.

“I have always known my Yaya to be a strong person. Previously, I had vaguely been aware of Yaya’s rough childhood, and ever since I can remember, I have always heard her stories of how she came to America all by herself at such a young age to marry a man she had never met. Nevertheless, this project was filled with so many jaw-dropping moments, and I learned things and stories that I had never known or been told about. I think I fully understand now what a hard life my Yaya had, but she persevered.” – Zoe, W.

How does oral history contribute to your book?

My intentions for the oral history project were multiple. I hoped to broaden students’ understanding of the past and encourage them to rethink the concept of historical actors. The assignment was intended to draw students closer to their narrators and inspire a deeper appreciation of their elders’ cultural heritage. As an instructor, I conceptualized the assignment as an ideal one to challenge students as writers, researchers, and as people. Oral history projects produce much better reads than college papers. This assignment engaged students personally.  The oral histories included in the collection offer a space from which to empathize with the everyday realities of the previous generations, and the many resourceful ways in which our ancestors lived their lives.

What do you like about using oral history as a methodology?

For my final assignment in Writing 101, I assign an oral history project. I ask students to conduct a life and family history interview with an older relative or someone who has lived long enough to have witnessed many historical changes. I encourage students to reflect on the significance of family history and consider their elder’s life within the broader context of national and transnational history. Family Portraits is the product of a collective endeavor as students worked closely with relatives, elders, and family friends from different generations and cultures to create a portrait of their narrators’ lives.

Writing family history is one of the most rewarding and meaningful ways to chronicle memories that too often leave the earth with their owner. Most of us can relate to experiencing regret for not having had one last conversation with an elder to learn more about their lives.  Oral history projects allow students to uncover a generational layer to their past. In recording these stories, student writers contribute to the humanizing and expanding of the historical record and develop a deep appreciation and humility for the hardships overcome in their lineage.

The process of going through a life-interview creates unique emotional legacies. oral histories help the younger generation to learn about their past, and to find their place in the continuity of their family’s journey. The distance between history and personal experience is shortened through oral histories. Serving as a bridge, oral history links private and public history making room for nuanced recollections of the past.

Why will fellow oral historians be interested in your book?

If you are an oral historian and an instructor, the collection of oral histories here will remind you of why you love the field and the methodology so much. The process of conducting an oral history project as special as a family history is a journey into uncovering the true meaning of family heritage, providing clues for why we are the way we are.

What is the one thing that you most want readers to remember about the book?

Each story in this book will take a piece of your heart. You will be immersed into windows of a life, so richly depicted and tenderly recalled, you’ll feel you are in the fields of Mexico, in WWII Japan, in Greece, in the segregated South. Each story is a family treasure written and uncovered by first year students who were transformed as writers and as people by shocking conversations with elders they thought they knew well.

Author Interview: Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla on Laughter in Oral History Interviews

In our most recent issue, Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla discusses the role of laughter—as distinct from humor—during oral history interviews in “Laughter in Oral Histories of Displacement: ‘One Goes on a Mission to Solve Their Problems,'” demonstrating the unconscious role of emotions in processing memories.

Why should we study laughter within the context of oral history interviews?

Studying laughter allows us to gain insight into some areas of the mind of the participants that we might not understand as well otherwise. It could be considered similar to analyzing physical expressions, silences, changes of voice tone, or any other type of non-verbal communication. Analyzing laughter allows us to gain insight into the meaning that participants give to their past, the emotions linked to the narrated events, and the relationship they still have with this period of their past. It allows the researcher to gain a more nuanced understanding of their interviewees’ stories.

Give us your definition of laughter and the role it plays. 

In order to understand laughter, it is important to separate it from humor. Humor and laughter, although linked, are two different concepts, and the one will not always lead to the other. While humor is a mental ability to perceive and/or express something funny, laughter on the other hand is a sound, accompanied by a characteristic respiration pattern, and produced as the expression of an emotion, which can be set off by a humorous trigger, but is not necessarily. Some participants might not use humor in their narratives but will laugh when remembering facts and situations from the story they are telling. In my study, I define laughter as an unconscious, spontaneous reaction triggered by the expression or memory of an incongruity, which can be linked to the social and historical context of the narrated event or to the narrator’s self.

How does your study differ from previous studies that analyzed humor and laughter in oral history?

Most of the articles about laughter in oral history studies tend to analyze laughter and humor together, focusing on the use of humor in the interview and the laughter that is intertwined with it. My study is closer to Kate Moore’s work with immigrants in the United States, as her work focuses on laughter on its own. She analyzes in particular what she calls “unilateral laughter,” which is when the interviewee laughs alone, not expecting the interviewer to react to that laughter. In her case she focuses mainly on the use of laughter to express difficult memories. In my case, I also decided to analyze unilateral laughter, but not limiting it to difficult memories. As such, it allowed me to discover how participants felt about their old self, about the political system many of them had supported, and about how working in the Cuban solidarity programs had impacted them in many ways. This included difficult memories, but not all can be qualified as such.

You state that laughter and humor are not always linked. Describe some instances in which laughter plays a role in oral history distinct from humor.

There is one interview that had a strong impact on me as a researcher, due to the intense emotions that the narrator expressed. Carolina, as I refer to her in my article, was a mother of two small children, happily married, but had never really agreed with the political system in place in Cuba. She managed to make use of an international mission to escape from Cuba and start a new life in the United States. However, this wasn’t an easy journey as she was separated from her children and husband during the two years she worked in Africa, and then once she finally managed to escape, she had to fight to gain her children back who had remained in Cuba with her parents.

During the interview, Carolina told the traumatic story of her escape, the stress she underwent in every step of it, from planning to the journey itself, and fear of getting caught at some point throughout this process. However, despite reliving the experience while narrating it, she laughed many times, up to a point that I sometimes struggled with the transcription of the interviews. She laughed when remembering her stress, when recalling each moment of her escape process and journey that she thought would not succeed, and when telling me about her arrival in the United States and her encounter with her sister she had not seen in years. She also laughed when explaining how she managed to trick the Cuban surveillance system in place at the mission.

At no point did Carolina try to be funny when telling me this story, nor was she using humor, however, she was laughing often and, in some cases, so much that it was interrupting her narration. This laughter told me so much more about where she was in her coping process, in her acculturation process, and in her adaptation process than words would have been able to express; and this laughter had no connection with humor.

What is the connection between laughter and self-identity?

In the case of my interviews, I noticed when analyzing laughter that my participants often laughed when thinking back about the person they were at the time of the story they were telling. They laughed remembering how little they knew about the outside world, how naive they were in some instances, but also how courageous and daring they had been.

Thinking about their past from a distance, not only in time but also in place, made some narrators realize how much they had changed, and how the narrated stories had impacted their identities and their understanding of their country, the world, and life in general. When reflecting on these changes in identity, my participants laughed, expressing as such their incredulity, as well as their amazement about the person they were and the changes they had gone through.

In addition to exploring laughter, your article sheds light on the history of Cuban internationalist healthcare professionals. Please describe the larger research project.

The Cuban international solidarity programs have been in the news frequently in the past months, due to the interventions of the Cuban medical missions in countries all over the world, including in developed countries such as Italy and Andorra, to support healthcare systems during the COVID-19 epidemic. However, these programs date back to 1963, when Cuba sent its first long-term medical mission to Algeria. Throughout these years, Cuba has offered access to healthcare in remote areas all over the world, as well as disaster relief when needed. The official Cuban press often shares statistics and reports of the impact of the Cuban solidarity program on the recipient countries, but little is known about the healthcare workers themselves and the changes they underwent by participating in this program.

This is why I decided to start a project entitled “Life Stories of Cuban internationalist healthcare professionals” in 2014, to fill the gap in the existing literature about these programs, by allowing the participants themselves to share their stories and help us gain a better understanding of what it meant for them to join these missions, how the work impacted their lives and those of their families, and the challenges they faced as Cuban internationalists. This project received support from the British Academy Networking Grant, which allowed me to spend 7 weeks at the University of Miami, and conduct my first set of interviews with Cuban doctors who had escaped the mission and were currently living abroad. The paper published in Oral History Review is based on this set of interviews.

Since then, the project has evolved significantly. It now includes interviews with Cuban internationalist healthcare professionals who returned back to Cuba after completing their mission, as well as interviews with Cuban healthcare professionals while working on a mission. Last year, I travelled several times to Tanzania where I had a chance to visit the members of the mission in their households and gain an understanding of their lives while on the mission. The project is ongoing and interviews are added continuously, and I am now considering adding interviews related to the COVID-19 interventions.

Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla is an Associate Professor of Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick (United Kingdom). She is the coauthor of the book Fidel and Gabo: The Portrait of a Friendship (Espasa 2004, Pegasus 2010). She has published several papers on Reinaldo Arenas’ literary work and her second book, El testimonio en la Pentagonía de Reinaldo Arenas, was published by Tamesis, Boydell & Brewer, in August 2016. She is also the co-editor of the Special Issue on Cuba in Oral History (September 2017). Her current research focuses on the use of oral history to explore life narratives of Cuban healthcare professionals who participated in the Cuban International Solidarity Programs.

Featured Image by Pexel user Reafon Gates, free to use. 

Recommended Readings on Anti-Racism, Part 2

In last week’s post, we featured articles from the OHR archive that use oral history to help readers consider issues related to anti-racism. Today we recommend books reviewed in past issues that will further our exploration of  white privilege, civil rights, and systemic racism. 

In this second installment of our recommended reading list, editorial interns Sidney Davies and Lauren Conner have compiled book reviews from the OHR archive that use oral history to address topics related to racism, privilege, civil rights, activism, and African American history in general. We at OHR hope that the resources provided in last week’s post and this one can amplify the voices and history of African Americans, and help educate those who are committed to ending discrimination and injustice. Oral history gives a voice to those who are often voiceless, and provides the opportunity to share firsthand experiences. Included below are links to the reviews, which Routledge has taken from behind the paywall, as well as links to the publishers of the books themselves which are available for purchase. 

Mireille Miller-Young, A Taste of Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014).

A Taste of Brown Sugar examines Black women’s experiences in the porn industry since the 1980s.  Miller-Young has an incredible ability to weave together theory, experience, and research to create a cohesive and detailed picture of what life looked like for these women. Miller-Young gives underrepresented and unheard women a chance to voice not only their fight with discrimination, but also an emotional picture of their lives, sexuality, and experiences as women of color. Read Mario Alvarez’s review at OHR. 

Lisa Krissoff Boehm, Making a Way out of No Way: African American Women and the Second Great Migration (University of Mississippi Press, 2009).

Drawing on pre-existing oral histories and interviews with migrant women, Lisa Krissoff Boehm chronicles the experiences of African American women who were a part of the second Great Migration that spanned from the 1940s to the 1960s. These interviews show the struggles facing these women: the different forms of racism in the North, job scarcity, and the eternal struggle of balancing work and home. Read Thomas W. Copeland’s review here.

Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff, Blacks in the White Elite: Will the Progress Continue? (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).

Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff’s updated and expanded study follows a group of young Black students who attended some of the most prestigious, elite, and predominantly white schools in the 1960s, tracing their life stories through middle age. The updated edition adds a chapter exploring the next generation, investigating the educational experiences of their children.  Read Gordon Davies’ full review for OHR.  

Cooper Thompson, Emmett Schaefer, and Harry Brod, eds., White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories (Duke University Press, 2003).

White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories is a collection of interviews with 35 white men conducted by the co-editors, which detail the narrators’ efforts to identify and overcome their own internalized racism. The interviewees range in age, location, experience, orientation, and occupation, giving a diverse perspective from within the ranks of white men. Not only does the book provide first person perspectives on how to address racism within oneself, all author royalties were donated to anti-racism foundations. Read OHR‘s review of the collection by Pamela Grundy. 

Nancy Grant, TVA and Black Americans: Planning for the Status Quo (Temple University Press, 1989).

Nancy Grant’s book is the first to focus specifically on the relationship between the TVA and African Americans. The TVA may have declared its support of Black communities and its desire to fight racism, but the reality of the authority’s actions was far different. The TVA enforced the pre-existing racial status quo, further solidifying racist policies and institutions. The actions of the TVA reflect a broader problem with institutions and government policies historically overlooking or intentionally ignoring African American communities and enforcing systematic racism.  Read Susan Hamburger’s review here.

Martha Biondi, The Black Revolution on Campus (University of California Press, 2014). 

Martha Biondi focuses on protests taking place in colleges nationwide in the late 1960s and early 1970s in her book The Black Revolution on Campus. Biondi blends interviews with research on higher education, showing just how crucial Black student activists were in reforming higher education nationwide and carving out a place for the Black community within the walls of colleges everywhere. Biondi’s book addresses one aspect of a larger problem: the continuing lack of diversity in higher education and academia. Read Anna F. Kaplan’s review for OHR here. 

Charles F. Robinson II and Lonnie R. Williams, eds. Remembrances in Black: Personal Perspectives of the African American Experience at the University of Arkansas, 1940s-2000s (University of Arkansas Press, 2010). 

Remembrances in Black tells the stories of Black students’ experiences at the University of Arkansas over a 50 year period, starting with George W. B. Haley in 1949, to Quantrell Willis in 1999. The narratives compiled by the editors weave a tapestry of pride and shame, opposition and accomplishment. Told chronologically, the changes, or lack thereof, over the decades paint a picture of Black experiences in academia. Read OHR‘s review, written by Guy Lancaster. 

Howard Smead , Blood Justice: The Lynching of Mack Charles Parker (Oxford University Press, 1988). 

Based on interviews, newspaper articles, and FBI documents, Blood Justice focuses on the lynching of one man, Mack Charles Parker. While Smead focuses more on the white perspective on the lynching, his work is another contribution to the literature surrounding mob violence. You can read Spencie Love’s review here.

Leslie Brown and Anne Valk, Living with Jim Crow: African American Women and Memories of the Segregated South (Palgrave, 2010). 

A collection of interviews with Black women from the segregated South, this book shows the realities of life, relationships, work, and activism for these women.  Brown and Valk highlight both the public and private lives and struggles of Black women during the Jim Crow era. The book is organized into larger topics such as sexuality, family dynamics, and gender with a broad array of women being interviewed. Read Kitty Oliver’s review here.

John Langston Gwaltney, Drylongso: A Self-Portrait of Black America (The New Press, 1993). 

Anthropologist John Langston Gwaltney interviewed 41 African Americans in an attempt to define “core Black culture.” Eugene Pfaff Jr.’s review on OHR poses several questions about Gwaltney’s methodological approach , but highlights the impact of many of the interviews and the picture they paint about the ‘Black silent majority.’ Gwaltney captured the spirit and world view of his respondents in a fascinating collection of stories and experiences. Read Eugene Pfaff Jr.’s review at OHR here. 

Jennifer Ritterhouse, Growing Up Jim Crow: How Black and White Southern Children Learned Race (University of North Carolina Press, 2006). 

Ritterhouse draws on oral histories and autobiographical accounts in her study of how racial differences and discrimination were taught to children in the Jim Crow era. The social subtleties and elaborate etiquette created around race originated in slavery, and continued on as a way of enforcing white superiority. Allen Kent Powell, the author of the review for Ritterhouse’s study, notes the heartbreak of parents trying to explain to their children why they can’t do what other children can, and why they are treated so poorly. Ritterhouse’s study emphasizes the role parental influence and training takes in creating and maintaining social differences and racism. Check out Powell’s review here. 

Steve Estes, I am a Man! Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2006. 

Steve Estes’s award-winning I am a Man! explores the role of gender in the Civil Rights Movement, and examines key figures and ideas that shaped the gender politics during this tumultuous time. Much of the language used in civil rights rhetoric was highly gendered towards a masculine perspective, and Estes dissects the positive and negative repercussions of that, as well as how it influenced individuals’ interaction with the Civil Rights Movement. Read Horacio Roque Ramirez’s review of I am a Man! 

Beth Roy, Bitters in the Honey: Tales of Hope and Disappointment across Divides of Race and Time (University of Arkansas Press, 1999).

Beth Roy collected interviews from both Black and white individuals who were involved in the desegregation of Central Rock High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Roy makes the effort to understand the perspectives of those who were against desegregation, as she believes to truly overcome racism, one must understand the emotions of racist individuals. The full review is available at OHR. 

Jeff Kisseloff, Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s: An Oral History (University Press of Kentucky, 2006. 

Generations on Fire is a collection of interviews of civil rights activists from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Jeff Kisseloff explores these individuals’ motivations and experiences, painting a picture of what it was like standing against the majority during such tumultuous times. The new wave of activists and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement might find it both comforting and inspiring to read the experiences of the activists that came before. Read the full review here.

Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How it Changed America (Vintage, 1992).

Lemann’s book is a groundbreaking work that studies not only the Great Migration, but the roots of poverty in sharecropper culture and how the migration brought national attention to racial issues. Robert Slayton praises Lemann in his review of The Promised Land, pointing out that Lemann’s work causes the reader to think in new ways about old issues, which will hopefully lead to new solutions and new ideas. Read Slayton’s full review at OHR here.

This reading list was compiled by OHR editorial assistants Lauren Connors (History major, Kean University) and Sydney Davies (History major, West Chester University) working remotely as summer interns.

Featured image by Janneken Smucker.

Recommended Readings on Anti-Racism from the OHR Archive, Part 1

Following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, in hundreds of cities, hundreds of thousands of people have protested systematic racism broadly, and police brutality specifically. One of the most important things we can do is educate ourselves on the history and oppression of the Black community and the ways activists have challenged racism. We at OHR have contemplated what and how oral history can contribute to this action.

OHR editorial assistants Lauren Connors and Sydney Davies dug into the OHR archive to compile a list of resources utilizing oral history that can help us wrestle with anti-racism, activism, police brutality, and white privilege. This first installment shares articles from the journal, with Alex Haley’s 1973 “Black History, Oral History, and Genealogy” as the earliest, written three years before the publication of Roots. 

We had hoped that this reading list would provide us with an opportunity to amplify the voices of Black practitioners working in the field of oral history. Sadly, Haley’s article is an all-too-rare example of an OHR piece by an African American author.  The field of oral history, like other parts of academia, is disproportionately white, reflecting the systematic racism that plagues much of higher education. We recognize that there is a lot of work we must do as individuals and institutions to make our field reflect the inclusivity and democratic impulses that it has long advocated. We at OHR are committed to this work and will strive to publish and promote the work of people of color in the journal. 

The leadership of the Oral History Association, OHR’s parent organization, recently published a statement in response to the the killing of George Floyd, in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, which we would like to endorse and excerpt here: 

“As oral historians, we understand that through the stories of people—citizens and activists—we can confront oppression and work to create an equitable and just society. In our commitment to diversity, inclusivity, and respect, and to a historical record that documents the experiences of unheard and marginalized voices, we must listen to and amplify the demands of people and communities of color. We must continue to document and expose the injustice so many have suffered for centuries, and develop new projects to expand these efforts.

In our commitment to diversity, inclusivity, and respect, and to a historical record that documents the experiences of unheard and marginalized voices, we must listen to and amplify the demands of people and communities of color.

In this work, it is essential we adopt anti-racist methods and practices. Further, we can and must work to address institutional racism in our institutions and our field, through developing and supporting leaders of color, providing anti-oppression training, and continually working to center the voices and experiences of those most directly impacted by oppression. People of color, whether they be colleagues, narrators, students, or patrons, must be supported and valued. Historical knowledge around police brutality and systemic racism is essential to addressing both, but Black and Brown people must have a clear, equal, and respected role in developing this knowledge.” 

Follow the links to the individual articles in the OHR archive, where Routledge has generously removed the paywall for these pieces. Next week we will share book reviews of publications addressing themes of anti-racism through an oral history lens. 

Howard Beeth, “Pigmentocracy, Melting Pot, Mosaic, Salad, or Stew?: Some Current Thinking About Race in the USA,” The Oral History Review, 22.1 (1992). 

Howard Beeth contrasts the varying approaches of oral historians to the issue of race in his review of five works regarding the racial discourse in the United States and Britain. Beeth’s comparison displays the different ways in which oral history can address and contribute to conversations about race. Read Beeth’s review at OHR. 

Emilye Crosby, “White Privilege, Black Burden: Lost Opportunities and Deceptive Narratives in School Desegregation in Claiborne County, Mississippi,” The Oral History Review, 39.2 (2012)

Crosby examines the history of school desegregation and the lives of both Black and white families through retrospective interviews from the 1990s during a time of re-engagement between the two groups.  The article also explores the topic of white privilege in both the past and present, as well as the question of lost opportunities in Claiborne County, Mississippi, during the 1960s. 

Bret Eynon, “Community in Motion: The Free Speech Movement, Civil Rights, and the Roots of the New Left,” Oral History Review 17.1 (1989). 

Through interviews with many of its participants, Eynon explores the 1960s Free Speech Movement, as it intersected with and drew on the foundations of other activism of that era, particularly the Civil Rights Movement.  In particular, Eynon analyzes interviews in order to situate the Free Speech Movement in relationship to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and other civil rights organizations. 

Alex Haley, “Black History, Oral History, and Genealogy,” The Oral History Review, 1.1 (1973).

Writing about his process of uncovering his family history through storytelling, Alex Haley shares his journey of tracing his “roots” to Africa and how it relates to oral history. Haley dedicated almost a decade to this research and describes both his  methodology as well as his personal insight and feelings towards the work and the civil rights climate during that time. Adapted from his address to the Oral History Association annual meeting, this article was published three years before Haley’s landmark Roots. 

Roger Horowitz & Rick Halpern, “Work, Race, and Identity: Self-Representation in the Narratives of Black Packinghouse Workers,” The Oral History Review, 26.1 (1999).

Through the examination of the lives of Rowena Moore and William Raspberry, two very different meatpacking workers in post-war midwest cities, the authors explore topics including union organization, Black advancement, and self-identity. 

Tracy E. K’Meyer, “Remembering the Past and Contesting the Future of School Desegregation in Louisville, Kentucky, 1975–2012,” The Oral History Review, 39.2 (2012) 

Focused on the city of Louisville and Jefferson County, K’Meyer examines the policies of busing through current policy debates and oral histories from multiple activists, students, parents, and school administrators.  Connecting the 1975 busing crisis to the current issues of integration within the city, K’Meyer demonstrates how oral history can impact public policy discussions. 

Phyllis Palmer, “Recognizing Racial Privilege: White Girls and Boys at National Conference of Christians and Jews Summer Camps, 1957–1974,” The Oral History Review, 27.2 (2000)

Through interviews with participants at the intentionally interracial National Conference of Christians and Jews summer camps, Palmer explores how White teenagers came to identify and understand their racial privilege and the oppression of institutional racism. 

Abigail Perkiss, “Reclaiming the Past: Oral History and the Legacy of Integration in West Mount Airy, Philadelphia,” The Oral History Review, 41.1 (2014)

West Mount Airy is historically known as one of the few intentionally integrated neighborhoods in postwar America, avoiding both violence towards new Black families moving in as well as ‘white flight.’  As the decades went on, this community faced new challenges and in 1992 the West Mount Airy Neighbors Association created an oral history project to trace the roots and examine the legacy of its integrationist efforts. In doing so, the project “use[d] historical memory in order to stir residents to action in the present.” 

Judith A. Ridner & Susan W. Clemens-Bruder, “Taking Their Place Among the Giants: Performing Oral Histories of Pennsylvania’s Black Freedom Struggle,” The Oral History Review, 41.1 (2014)

The three major towns of the Lehigh Valley; Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, all have a hidden history of African Americans and their struggles against urban renewal and racism.  Using recorded life histories from the oldest members of these towns recorded as part of the Lehigh Valley Black African Heritage History Project, playwright Linda Parris-Bailey created Another River Flows: Stories, Songs, and a Celebration of the Lehigh Valley Black Experience. 

Kim Lacy Rogers, “Organizational Experience and Personal Narrative: Stories of New Orleans’s Civil Rights Leadership,” The Oral History Review, 13.1 (1985).

Kim Lacy Rogers, “Memory, Struggle, and Power: On Interviewing Political Activists,” The Oral History Review, 15.1 (1987).

In this pair of articles, Rogers analyzes interviews she conducted with New Orleans civil rights leaders active during the 1950s and 1960s. Using interviews with members of organizations including the NAACP, CORE, and Urban League, Rogers explores the role of of institutions and personal histories in shaping the legacy of activism in Louisiana. 

Barbara Shircliffe, “‘We Got the Best of That World’: A Case for the Study of Nostalgia in the Oral History of School Segregation,” The Oral History Review 28.2 (2001)

Shircliffe analyzes the role nostalgia plays in recollections within oral history interviews, particularly how African Americans educated in segregated schools look back fondly on those experiences, despite the systemic oppression of the Jim Crow school system. While nostalgia normally poses a challenge to historians trying to understand the past, nostalgia can also inform historians of the emotions and experiences of individuals.

Jessica Taylor, “‘We’re on Fire’: Oral History and the Preservation, Commemoration, and Rebirth of Mississippi’s Civil Rights Sites,” The Oral History Review 42.2 (2015)

Historical sites have long been an important way to commemorate our nation’s history, yet what constitutes a landmark in regards to the civil rights movement is under question. Taylor shares interviews with civil right activists conducted as part of Mississippi Freedom Project, an initiative on the part of students and staff at the University of Florida’s Samuel Proctor Oral History Program to document the stories of civil rights workers and everyday life in the Mississippi Delta.  Taylor reflects on why her efforts to place parts of the historical civil rights built environment on the National Register of Historic Places ultimately failed, noting the tension “between oral history as a people-based discipline and historic preservation’s attachment to place.” 

Victoria Wyatt, “Oral History in the Study of Discrimination and Cultural Repression,” The Oral History Review, 15.1 (1987)

With Alaskan Indians as her focus, Wyatt details the process and obstacles of conducting oral history interviews as a member of the race who has perpetrated the oppression which is the project’s subject matter.  Wyatt describes the trust that must develop between interviewer and narrator when talking about discrimination. 

Ruth Carbonette Yow, “Shadowed Places and Stadium Lights: An Oral History of Integration and Black Student Protest in Marietta, Georgia,” The Oral History Review, 42.1 (2015)

Football is widely seen as a colorless sport, one that anyone can play and can help create a bond between races, and Marietta High School in Georgia uses the storyline of their desegregated football team’s state victory in 1967 as evidence of their historically racial harmony.  Here Yow unpacks this narrative, arguing that it overshadows the Black student-led protests at the school and grassroots organizations of the town.

This reading list was compiled by OHR editorial assistants Lauren Connors (History major, Kean University) and Sydney Davies (History major, West Chester University) working remotely as summer interns.

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