All Topics  
Oral history

 

   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link






 

Oral history



 
 
Oral history can be defined as the recording, preservation and interpretation of historical information
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
, based on the personal experiences and opinions of the speaker.

It often takes the form of eye-witness evidence about past events, but can include folklore
Folklore

Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, superstitions, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group ....
, myths, song
Song

A song is a musical musical composition which contains vocal parts that are performed, 'sung,' and feature words , commonly accompanied by musical instruments ....
s and stories passed down over the years by word of mouth. While it is an invaluable way of preserving the knowledge and understanding of older people, it can also involve interviewing younger generations.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Oral history'
Start a new discussion about 'Oral history'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Oral history can be defined as the recording, preservation and interpretation of historical information
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
, based on the personal experiences and opinions of the speaker.

It often takes the form of eye-witness evidence about past events, but can include folklore
Folklore

Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, superstitions, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group ....
, myths, song
Song

A song is a musical musical composition which contains vocal parts that are performed, 'sung,' and feature words , commonly accompanied by musical instruments ....
s and stories passed down over the years by word of mouth. While it is an invaluable way of preserving the knowledge and understanding of older people, it can also involve interviewing younger generations. More recently, the use of video recording techniques has expanded the realm of oral history beyond verbal forms of communication and into the realm of gesture
Gesture

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication made with a part of the body, used instead of or in combination with verbal communication. The language of gesture allows individuals to express a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection....
.

Modern tradition

Contemporary oral history involves recording or transcribing eyewitness accounts of historical events. Some anthropologists started collecting recordings (at first especially of Native American folklore) on phonograph cylinders in the late 19th century. In the 1930s the Works Progress Administration (WPA) sent out interviewers to collect accounts from various groups, including surviving witnesses of the American Civil War, Slavery
Slavery

Slavery is a form of forced labor where a person is compelled to Labor for another . Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive Remuneration in return for their labor....
, and other major historical events. The Library of Congress
Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books....
 also began recording traditional American music and folklore onto acetate discs. With the development of audio tape recordings after World War II, the task of oral historians became easier.

In 1942 the New Yorker published a profile of Joe Gould
Joe Gould (Bohemian)

Joseph Ferdinand Gould was an United States writer.Gould was born in a small suburb outside Boston. In 1911, he graduated from Harvard with a bachelor?s degree in Literature, even though his family wanted him to become a physician....
, who claimed to be collecting “An Oral History of Our Time.” Although Gould never produced this work, the magazine story about him popularized the term oral history. In 1948 Alan Nevins, a Columbia University historian, established the Columbia Oral History Research Office, with a mission of recording, transcribing, and preserving oral history interviews. In 1967 American oral historians founded the Oral History Association, and in 1969 British oral historians founded the Oral History Society. There are now numerous national organizations and an International Oral History Association, which hold workshops and conferences and publish newsletters and journals devoted to oral history theory and practices.

Historians, folklorists, anthropologists, sociologists, journalists, linguists, and many others employ some form of interviewing in their research. Although multi-disciplinary, oral historians have promoted common ethics and standards of practice, most importantly the attaining of the “informed consent” of those being interviewed. Usually this is achieved through a deed of gift, which also establishes copyright ownership that is critical for publication and archival preservation.

Oral historians generally prefer to ask open-ended questions and avoid leading questions that encourage people to say what they think the interviewer wants them to say. Some interviews are “life reviews,” conducted with those at the end of their careers, others are focused on a specific period in their lives, such as war veterans, or specific events, such as those with survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

The first oral history archives focused on interviews with prominent politicians, diplomats, military officers, and business leaders. By the 1960s and ‘70s, interviewing began being employed more often when historians investigate history from below
History from below

History from below is a concept of history in social history, which focuses on the perspectives of ordinary people, rather than political and other leaders....
. Whatever the field or focus of a project, oral historians attempt to record the memories of many different people when researching a given event. Interviewing a single person provides a single perspective. Individuals may misremember events or distort their account for personal reasons. By interviewing widely, oral historians seek points of agreement among many different sources, and also record the complexity of the issues. The nature of memory–both individual and community–is as much a part of the practice of oral history as are the stories collected.

See also

  • Intangible Cultural Heritage
    Intangible Cultural Heritage

    The notion of intangible cultural heritage emerged in the 90s, as a counterpart to the World Heritage that focuses mainly on tangible aspects of culture....
  • National Day of Listening
    National Day of Listening

    National Day of Listening is a day set aside to encourage the collecting of oral interviews for personal and family history preservation. The event was first promoted in 2008, when it was set to coincide with the day after Thanksgiving Day, when families are more likely to spend time together....
  • Oral history preservation
    Oral history preservation

    Oral history preservation is the field that deals with the care and upkeep of oral history materials, whatever format they may be in. Oral history is a method of historical documentation, using interviews with living survivors of the time being investigated....
  • Postliterate society
    Postliterate society

    A postliterate society is a hypothetical society wherein multimedia technology has advanced to the point where literacy, the ability to read written words, is no longer necessary....
  • Reminiscence therapy
    Reminiscence therapy

    Reminiscence therapy is used to Counseling and support older people, and is an intervention technique with Traumatic brain injury patients. This form of therapeutic intervention respects the life and experiences of the individual with the aim to help the patient maintain good mental health....

External links


Case studies and collections

  • Cappel, Constance, "The Smallpox of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763: The History of a Native American People". The Edwin Mellon Press, 2007.
  • Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History
    Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History

    The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky actively collects oral history interviews concentrating on 20th and 21st century Kentucky history, and maintains a collection of over 7,000 interviews made up of over 100 projects....
    , University of Kentucky


Organizations



Technical

  • made available by the .