THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS TEACHING WITH PRIMARY SOURCES DEPARTMENT @ CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

MR. NIK ROBERTSDR. DAVE LONICH

Teaching with Primary Sources:

The Oral History ComponentJuly 2010

roberts_n@calu.edu 724.938.6022 Keystone 112

Session 1: Conceptual Framework

What? Definition Demarcation

Where? Historic scope Modern scope

Why? Pedagogical justifications

Agenda for Session One

A) Definition A primary source? Demarcation (from other oral sources of information)

B) History Distinguished from written history

C) Pedagogy Unique knowledge available Trans-disciplinary uses Critical thinking Compatibility (student-centered, inquiry-based & project-

based learning) D) Digital Collections Demonstration E) Web-quest

What is Oral History?

Definition(s)Demarcation

A) DefinitionWhat is Oral History? Four takes…

1. “The recording of personal testimony delivered in oral form” (Yow, 2005, p. 3).

2. “Memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews” (Ritchie, 2003, p. 19).

3. “A sound recording of historical information, obtained through an interview that preserves a person's life history or eyewitness account of a past event" (“Discovering,” 2008, p. 1).

4. “A primary-source material created in an interview setting with a witness to or a participant in an event or way of life for the purpose of preserving the information and making it available to others” (Sommer & Quinlin, 2009, p. 1).

Some terms often used interchangeably with oral history: self-report, personal narrative, life story, life testament, life biography, life review, recorded memories, recorded memoir, etc.

Demarcation / Four Falsehoods:

What oral history is not: Journalism Folklore A structured interview A sound byte Monologic

Why is each of the above not oral history?

ScopeWhere is Oral History Situated?

Historical Scope Before the written word… Academic Scope

Formal recognition of “oral history”

Modern Scope Sample areas of practice Interview topics/themes

“Real” Oral History History

Where is oral history and why should I care?

.

Academic Oral History History

1948 – The first O.H. office was started by historian Allan Nevins @ Columbia University The focus was on preserving diplomatic history from

those diplomats who did not leave behind memoirs.

O.H. takes off during the 1960s & 1970s e.g. Alex Haley, Studs Terkel, Oscar Lewis

OHA established

The Scope of Oral History Practice:Topics from the 2009 OHA Conference

Oral History as Art and Advocacy frames panels that explore the full range of artistic dimensions of oral history, recognizing that advocacy is embedded in many of these interpretive performances.

Oral History as Teaching and Service Learning provides a framework for panels that examine a range of issues involved in student training, and has been deployed to build communities and knowledge through university and school interaction.

Oral History as Film and Image provides a border for those panels that connect images to oral history, either through photography or film.

Oral History and Folklife in Community is an umbrella for panels that consider the boundaries of community or the ways that oral history and folklife contributes to the community-building process.

Oral History as Activism and Social Justice is a thread that borders and encompasses work with a strong commitment to social, political, and/or economic change, recognizing the often implicit underpinnings of many oral history projects.

Oral History in Museums, Archives, and Digital Environments provides a rubric through which to consider two disparate, though often interconnected, trends: the development of digital tools and exhibit formats and the expansion of oral history use in museums, as well as increased attention to the archiving of oral histories.

Oral History as Research Methodology provides a thematic structure for panels that use oral history in service of a disciplinary research endeavor or take on oral history as a mode of understanding.

Topics/Themes in the Oral History Landscape

Specific historical events Childhood Teenage years Family history & norms Individual & community interests Vocation & retirement Military experiences Marriage/ family history Spiritual / religious life Worldviews: attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, opinion Folklore, superstitions, customs, myths Cultural celebrations: holidays Death and dying Etc.

Why [study/practice/do] Oral History?

The crisisImportance

General Learning

Snapshot of the Crisis in Knowledge

An event occurs

Evidence is left behind and created

Environments threaten survival

of records

Archives preserve what exists &

provide access

Opportunities to

Educe

Donora Smog, 9/11 attacks, JFK election,

etc.Artifacts,

diaries, photographs,

etc.Fires, floods, hungry dogs

trash, etc.

Archives, libraries, repositories, museums,

person collections

Possibility for Learning

In other words…

Why is Oral History Important, Generally?

Historical documents and books can't tell us everything about our past.

Written history often concentrates on famous people and big events, and tend to miss the ordinary people living ordinary lives.

Written history often neglects people on the fringes of society, e.g., the poor, disabled, ethnic communities.

Oral history fills the gaps and gives voice to history that includes everyone. Gives “voice to the voiceless.”

Value of Oral Histories in Education

“Oral history not only enriches our understanding of the past, but also holds the potential to dramatically enrich the classroom experience. Oral history projects can help students from early primary grades through the college level learn an amazing range of content knowledge and skills.”

- Kathryn Walbert

Why Oral History in the Classroom?

As a primary source, oral histories allow students to interact with the past (e.g., the “history makers”) in a direct way

Empowers students with their own learningProvides empathic sense of another’s lifeGenerates student expertsProvides information that isn’t available in other

historic sourcesAuthentic opportunity for students to function as

historians or social scientistsIt’s fun!

Session One Wrap-upMain Points

Split focus: life history/ eyewitness accts (e.g., Dust Bowl)Preservation as end goal Trans-disciplinary in natureO.H. fills gaps in history and gives “voice to the voiceless”The historic “bad rap” of oral history has been reframed

as positives (e.g., insight into memory, attitudes, perspectives, etc.)

Oral history today often discloses the role of the researcher by expounding on possible biases, interpretations

Session 2: Project Planning

How [to prepare]? Conducting background research Theme Selecting interviewees Interviewing

Approaches Questioning Techniques

Guidelines Interview Guide

Where? Recording environment

With? Technological considerations

Preparation is the Key

Conceptualize the project What is it that you wish to accomplish? (This is the

aim of the Investigative Question). How do you intend to accomplish it?

Equipment Questions/outline Directions Release forms Prompts Review your checklist Know your narrator

Learning Oral History

“The only way to learn how to do it [conduct an oral history] is to do it” (Truesdell, 2007, p. 1).

Oral history interviews are “learning events for the interviewer” (Portelli, 2009).

Finding Participants

Purposive Sampling: “Those interviewed are specific

individuals selected because of their often unique relationship to the topic at hand” (Yow, 2005, p. 360).

23

Questioning Example #1: The Holocaust

Q: Did you know anyone in the concentration camp?

A: Umm, yes.

This is a closed-ended question.

Questioning Example #2: The Holocaust

Q: How does it feel to know people who were in the concentration camps?

A: I lost 27 relatives in the Holocaust, a grandfather, many uncles, aunts, and cousins. They were sent to Auschwitz, sometime in June 1944. In 1935, when I was 10 years old, I visited these relatives with my parents and sister in Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine). All these years later I had a remembrance of these relatives. Needless to say our family felt the tragic effects of this news for these many years later.

This is an open-ended question.

Process of Questioning

Gain practice turning closed-ended questions into open-ended questions…

What do you remember about your grandparents? What was your grandfather’s name?

What kind of reception did Italians immigrants receive when they moved into town?

Was there prejudice against Italians moving to your town?

Sample Questioning StructureVHP

“Six Segments” format 1. For the Record

Date and place of the interview Name and birth date of the person being interviewed War and branch of service What his or her rank was

2. Jogging Memory Were you drafted or did you enlist? Why did you pick the service branch you joined? Do you recall your first days in service? Tell me about your boot camp/training experience(s). How did you get through it?

3. Experiences Which war(s) did you serve in (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian

Gulf)? Where exactly did you go? Do you remember arriving and what it was like? What was your job/assignment? Did you see combat? Were there many casualties in your unit? Tell me about a couple of your most memorable experiences.

Sample Questioning StructureVHP

4. Life How did you stay in touch with your family? Did you have plenty of supplies? Did you feel pressure or stress? Was there something special you did for "good luck"? How did people entertain themselves? Did you keep a personal diary?

5. After Service Do you recall the day your service ended? What did you do in the days and weeks afterward? Did you make any close friendships while in the service? Did you join a veterans organization?

6. Later Years and Closing Did your military experience influence your thinking about war

or about the military in general? How did your service and experiences affect your life?

Technological Considerations

Important to use best equipment available. If the quality is poor, the source may be unusable

Digital equipment Audio or Video Non-compressed recording

Session Two: Main Points

Oral history work involves practical skills. The art of oral history is gained by way of “learning by doing.”

Technology?Environment?

Session 3: Post-interview Outcomes

Now what? Thematic/topical time-log Transcription Outlets for oral history

Listening / Time-log Activity

Clip from an oral history with Howard Zinn, PhD. Recorded by telephone in California, PA on October 03, 2008

Sound-clip: Follow-up themes/questions

Other experiences regarding the trip to England across the AtlanticMore on the living conditions for enlisted men and officers

More on African-Americans living in the engine room

How strong did racism resonate with other officers/enlisted soldiers?How did the black soldier react after you put the sergeant in his place?What did your ‘political lecture’ entail?When was this? Food quality. Was food the same for the 4th shift?How have you used this “very important lesson” (choosing between principles) at other times in your life?

Is 16,000 accurate?

Triangulate “the first integration dining room in World War II”

Transcription Process

The final product of most oral history interviews—the published transcript—is but a monologic representation of a dialogic “performance” (Portelli, 2009).

Q: Is the interviewer involved or disinterested? Is it evident in the process of doing the interview, time-log, or transcription that the interviewer is an active part of the oral history?

Outlets: Post-Oral HistoryWhat can we do now?

Teaching / educationExhibit / preservation Writing / publicationTheatrical productionMedia projects

Methodological and Ethical Considerations

• Suffering presentism: Viewing the past through a lens in the present

• Role of the interviewer as involved participant• Rights of the interviewee• Harm to interviewee (IRB)• Options for transcription• Factual errors preserved in memory (an event):

– Validation / triangulation

• Representation

Ethics and Privacy

No taping without narrator’s knowledge Recording without narrator’s knowledge is invasion of

privacy Doesn’t hurt to get narrator’s permission on tape

Explain why and how oral histories will be usedDon’t make promises you can’t keepInterviewers and transcribers must understand: this

is confidential until completed. Remind narrators that information will be made

public Revealing too much about personal life Revealing too much about ANOTHER person’s life

References

Discovering oral history. (2008). Workshop on the Web, Introduction to Oral History. Waco, TX: Baylor University Institute for Oral History. Retrieved January 29, 2010, from http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/66419.pdf

Kvale, S. (2007). Doing interviews. The SAGE Qualitative Research Kit. Los Angeles: Sage. Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Morrissey, C. T. (2006). Oral history interviews from inception to closure. In Charlton, T. L., Myers, L. E., and

Sharpless, R. (Eds.), Handbook of oral history (pp. 170-206). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Oral History Evaluation Guidelines. (2000). Pamphlet Number 3, Oral History Association. Retrieved

November 6, 2009, from http://www.oralhistory.org/do-oral-history/oral-history-evaluation- guidelines/

Portelli, A. (2009, April 28).The oral history interview: The Methods Lab Annual Lecture. Department of Sociology, University of London. Retrieved October 31, 2009, from http://www.archive.org/details/Oral_History_Interview_Portelli

Ritchie, D. A. (2003). Doing oral history: A practical guide. New York: Oxford University Press. Rubin, J. R., and Rubin, I. S. (1995). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Sommer, B. W., and Quinlin, M. K. (2009). The oral history manual. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Shopes, L. (2006). Legal and ethical issues in oral history. In Charlton, T. L., Myers, L. E., and Sharpless, R.

(Eds.), Handbook of oral history (pp. 135-169). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Truesdell, B. (2007). Oral history techniques: How to organize and conduct oral history interviews. Center

for the Study of Memory and History, Indiana University. Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.indiana.edu/~cshm/techniques.html

Understanding oral history. (2008). Workshop on the Web, Introduction to Oral History. Waco, TX: Baylor University Institute for Oral History. Retrieved January 29, 2010, from http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/66420.pdf

Yow, V. R. (2005). Recording oral history: A guide for the humanities and social sciences. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

roberts_n@calu.edu 724- 938-6022 Keystone 112

That’s it for today!any questions?

TEACHING WITH PRIMARY SOURCESCOLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN SERVICES

CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA