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Events > Oral
History Workshop
Creating and Using Oral History in the Classroom
funded by the Teagle Foundation
Workshop One: 22 October 2005
Yale University
The purpose of the project is to explore and develop
ways to use library special collections and similar resources in teaching.
This workshop focuses on the use of oral history material in the
undergraduate classroom. It was held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on 22 October
2005 in the Lecture Hall of Sterling Memorial Library. It was convened by
Ann Okerson, Associate University Librarian for Collections and
International Programs.
After introductions, Project Coordinator Harriet
Bergmann introduced the first speaker, Bruce M. Stave.
Bruce Stave is the Board of Trustees Distinguished
Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Connecticut, and the
Director of the Center for Oral History at the University of Connecticut.
He is a past president of the New England Historical Association and the
New England Association for Oral History. He is, as well, the author or
editor of ten books.
Memory & Forgetting. The use of oral history in the
classroom makes study active rather than passive. It teaches editing and
communication skills, particularly when the oral record is transcribed,
which Stave recommends. Oral History creates a special collection that
has lasting value - and there is much more to it than doing interview.
The process should be thought of as developing primary source material
obtained through planned, tape recorded interviews. The standard guide is
Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide (Oxford
University Press, 2nd ed., 2003).
The process of oral history outlined: It begins with
the interview. This is then recorded, processed, and made available in
archive. It should be reproduced in verbatim form and made available for
research and verification. It is important that the record be complete,
candid, and verifiable (e.g, by providing access to the original
recording).
The oral tradition, of course, is thousands of years
old. Oral History moved into popular consciousness in America in the late
1970s: Roots (the book and TV program) and the popular writing of
Studs Terkel (recently recognized with an award by the Oral History
Association). The systematic use of tape recorder for archival purposes
dates further back, to 1948, and the work of Allan Nevins of Columbia University
at the Smithsonian Institution. He stressed elite interviewing (history top
down), but practice quickly changed, increasingly emphasized ordinary people,
those who don't leave records.
The old oral tradition didn't use a tape recorder.
Nevins set up an office and tape recorded interviews. The historian uses
the oral history in many ways, as primary source collection and as subject
of formal presentation (book, radio, dramatic performance, documentary).
Over time, practitioners have become more interested in silence, omission,
and error in the oral record, and in the way a collective memory can be
constructed out of multiple individual accounts. But memory is a
construct and is faulty. Many experiences intervene over the years. Oral
History gives an understanding of the past from the perspective of the
present. Alessandro Portelli: Oral History tells us not just what people
did, but what they wanted to do, believed they were doing, and now think
they did.
After this survey, Stave shared several syllabi with
the group:
History 232: Basic survey course. The
assignment is to use two of the books on immigration From
the Old Country(includes interviews written down, not taped, as part of WPA Ethnic group
material, 1938) and And Still They Come as a guide, to compare two
different groups and look at commonalities and differences. He also sends
the students to ethnic newspapers articles and books and suggested they do
their own oral history interview with an immigrant from each group. They
had little training but felt actively drawn in. A number of students
looked at archival material.
History 270 (for History majors) History and methods
(including introduction to field work). The basic text was Perks &
Thompson, The Oral History Reader (1998, going into 2nd edition). Their
focus on theory and practice of oral history is not as effective as would
like. The course focuses on oral history of a substantive topic: WWII.
The course covered a a set of question guidelines. The interview should
be a conversation: if question and answer, get one-word answers, he
recommends open-ended questions -- "Tell me about your early life…" Each
week students devise and refine questions and thus they have a stake in
interviewing process, and an understanding of it. The optimal interview
lasts two hours.
History 297: Senior History Seminar. This is a course
about the substance of WWII history. Basic text, L. Erenberg & S. Hirsch,
edd., The War in American Culture. In the middle of semester, introduced
them to oral history. The course had a website, featuring short
quotations, narrative, and transcripts (but no audio). The course
provided forms for interviewees to sign giving permission including
copyright (including WWW). Teaching and evaluating this course was
particularly time-consuming.
Stave concluded by showing the website for the Center
for Oral History at the University of Connecticut, and also a
website that two of his history students, now high school teachers, made
about World War II veterans.
A lively question period followed. Attendees were
interested in the Story Corps, run in New York City and at other venues.
Funding sources include foundations, government, the
state Humanities Council, Dept. of Education, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller
Foundation, Mellon Foundation, etc. The work is expensive and
time-consuming, notably including transcription costs. Oral history
remains confidential until the interviewee releases it. Immediate usage,
confidentiality, and amount of preparation differentiate oral history from
journalistic interviews.
Practitioners should give a copy of interview in
finished form to that person. They have the right to make changes-add,
strike, change language. Don't sign off until satisfied. Give a copy of
the interview in its final form to them. Also, they could close it for
five years, ten years, life. Transcript is the record. Dodd Center only
will release the transcript, not tape, unless get permission from family
or heirs.
Videotape is useful (example of the holocaust archive
projects). It is ore expensive and more intrusive (subjects are more
self-conscious). But inflection makes a difference. Oral history is a
good device to collect other materials, photos, bric-a-brac. Video is
good for those, also when showing activity.
The next speaker was Andy Horowitz, Director of the New
Haven Oral History Project. He has studied at Yale and is a native of New
Haven. Undergraduates do the interviews for courses in New Haven history
and Urban Studies. The project is Geographically centered and has both an
archival piece and an education piece. The focus is community building
and creating intergenerational dialogue. Types of interview: 1. Life
history-longer, autobiography. 2. Topical-more what students do. About 1
˝ hours. The format allows the student to be prepared and know
chronology. Students often doing for a paper for class with a clear idea
of topic.
The most important thing, Andy said, was that students
have a topic. They're doing an interview NOT so that the subject can
reiterate history, so they need to prepare carefully. He found that
students needed to be prepared by knowing details like the names of New
Haven's neighborhoods and the local news of the time of the topic of the
interview. Interviews need to be scheduled early in the semester. He
played a short interview with a man from New Haven saying some kind words
about Yale University, and went on to provide a thorough set of guidelines
that he prepares his students with.
Why doing Oral History? Not for a specific piece of
numerical data-they could get that better elsewhere-or theory about things
not involved in. First person recollections are important, things the
interviewee was involved in. Who was governor at time, who were the
leading figures, who were the big names of the neighborhood and what it
means to be from there. What else was going on around at the same time.
Andy dealt with the question of intersubjectivity by
saying that he essentially ignores it; he can't change the facts of the
genders, races or classes of either the students or the interviewees. One
of the things students do need to learn is, to put it bluntly, to shut
up-when to allow someone to consider a question, think, wait. He offered
a list of tips:
- Find
interviewees.
Don't expect
students to
identify own.
Names in paper,
Andy's own mother
mom most of
time knows
the type of
person they
want to interview.
Board of managers
who are well
connected.
They have avoided
doing interviews
about illegal
things because
students need
to use interviews
in papers.
- The
process is
not going to happen
in the space
of a week.
Make contact
early in semester.
- He
shared
a hand-out about the
interview.
Most important thing to do is shut up and hear what
interviewee has to say. Tell students to make a list
of topics and subtopics and themes and subthemes,
not a numbered list which may not be right follow-up.
- Use
best recording equipment you can. Gets expensive.
In bibliography, there are websites for
which recorders are best. $700 portable digital
cd recordable. $3-400 minidisc recorder-small, indestructible,
good quality. Not archival quality. Students don't
have players. Require real-time copying. Work together
with archives to be sure what you're doing is something
they can work with. $25 portable cassette recorder:
noise, hiss. Students may not have cassette player.
Burn a cd for the student. Think also about what
kind of use you want to put it to. New technological
solutions-ipod, laptop. He considers the recording
the primary document. Transcription tedious. Saves
$ for archive. Forces students to listen to interview
carefully. Important for students to hear other
students' work. Read transcripts more easily. Make
sure the students email their transcript. Email
excerpt of audio interview too. Basic social skills
help make interviewee feel comfortable. How you
interact, present yourself, follow up.
- Take a photograph of the interviewee.
Andy Horowitz, Part II. He spoke now of the student
perspective. The student needs to understand what Oral history as a
source can do, what is the relationship between this person and history?
Students can learn about an actual event. History that
is vivid, heart-wrenching, true. Being a professional historian, derive
meaning and historical significance, grapple with sophistry behind
historical inevitability. Breaks the past wide open. Teach about things
that didn't seem predestined. Let the people talk for themselves.
Individuals.
Horowitz then introduced Emily Light, a student who
interviewed a woman who was a parishioner at a German-community-based
Catholic church (St. Boniface) that was closing. She and Andy agreed that
the interview had flaws, but Andy felt she'd derived very good conclusions
and prepared an excellent paper.
Also heard excerpts from New Haven Oral History Project
re: the development of the area around Yale-New Haven Hospital.
The final presentation was by Richard
Szary, the Carrie
S. Beinecke Director of Manuscripts and Archives at Yale University. His
powerpoint presentation stressed the importance of consulting early and
often with the library which is to be the repository of the oral history
generated by students. He talked about the intersection of the mission of
pedagogy and the repository, and how a collection develops. Questions of
resources, title and permissions, and collections management-especially
the physical care of tapes and media-are important.
Local institutional repository may or may not be the
best place for the materials to go. Collections are expensive to take care
of. We need to be responsible when taking them in. Have to be up front
about material going into the repository and how it will be used and
accessible to researchers. Tapes-redub the tape every 10 years, for
example. About $200/hr. Never let people use the originals. Make a use
copy and a presertation/duplication master. Cataloging-at Yale it's in
Orbis. In with books, journals, videorecordings, whatever else. And info
in place where people would think to look, and goes to international.
Easier to find and serendipitous discovery.
Perhaps most important is what Rich called "enabling
discovery"-the cataloging and transcribing that must take place, and the
easing of the search process.
After the presentations the group completed evaluation
forms and adjourned. Included in the packets they left with were:
- From
Bruce Stave: syllabi
for two courses,
information about
the Center for
Oral History at
the University
of Connecticut,
the information
from the website
of Voices of the
Second World
War, and student
interview evaluation
forms.
- From
Andy Horowitz: eight pages of materials
and procedures for the NHOHP, as well as a bibliography,
and a postcard presenting faces
from the "Life
in the Model City" project
of the NHOHP.
- From
Libby van Cleve (not a presenter), Associate Director
of the Oral
History American Music project at
Yale University: a brochure explaining the project
and an annotated bibliography about oral history.
- From Richard Szary: a copy of the slides
of his powerpoint presentation.
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