“Audience invited to express their curiosities and specific interests in oral history, which include tools, teaching tips, methods/ethics in COVID, best practices for transcription.” See video recording here.
Blog
Russians in Alaska
“For thousands of years, the Tlingit people made their home in the islands of Southeast Alaska among other indigenous peoples, including the Haida, but at the turn of the 19th century, they came into contact with a group that would threaten their relationship with the land: Russian traders seeking to establish a footprint on the North American continent.” Read full story here.
Holocaust Memorial Day
“Holocaust Memorial Day serves as an annual reminder in the UK to pause and engage with remembering the Shoah. This year it is more important than ever before, but at the same time we must reflect on the fact that no single day of commemoration can ever be truly sufficient.” Read full story here.
COVID Road Trip USA
“Laid off from her job because of COVID-19 cutbacks, Michelle Fishburne began to travel the country, interviewing people from all walks of life. She calls her oral history project “Who We Are Now,” and her stories can be found at whowearenow.us.
Cambodian Oral History
“The project is the brainchild of Professor Dana Bourgerie, who travelled to Cambodia to initially study the dialects of the Chinese diaspora in the country in 2014. While conducting preliminary research, he realised many of his interview subjects didn’t know their family histories.” Read more about the project here.
Saudi Oral History
“RIYADH: From one generation to another, history is told and retold. But with time, large fragments are lost, so a Riyadh-based research center is helping preserve some of Saudi Arabia’s most important historical facts.
The earliest forms of storytelling for many cultures were primarily oral, combined with gestures and expressions, and at times, even drawings and paintings. With time these stories differ, their essence forgotten and countless tales lost through time. In recognition of the beauty of this dying art, the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives (Darah) has upgraded its work to record and preserve oral accounts of Saudi Arabian history and make them accessible to researchers.” Read full story here.
Holocaust Zoom Interviews
“Ina Navazelskis, an interviewer with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, was quiet for a moment as she watched him on her laptop in her study in Falls Church, Va. Normally, she would have been face to face with Orel in his home with a video and audio crew. Now, forced by the pandemic to talk on a shaky Zoom connection over a cellphone taped to his computer, Orel took out some tissues and wiped his nose.” See full story here.
Presidential Chef Dies
“Henry Haller’s entree to the White House came in late 1965, after the executive chef hired by the Kennedys had quit, finding it beneath his dignity at long last to prepare food like the spare ribs, spoon bread and mashed garbanzo beans requested by the subsequent White House occupants, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson.” Read fully story here which has a link to his oral history.
Children’s Museum
“Clarkson History Professor Laura Ettinger’s students collected oral histories from people 60 and over who grew up in the area. Their stories bring to life the work and play of childhood from an earlier time. Professor Laini Kavaloski from SUNY Canton and Professor Steven Pedersen from Clarkson’s Digital Arts & Sciences Program and their students created the audio and touch screen interactive. Director Mimi VanDeusen from the Potsdam Public Museum loaned historical artifacts for the displays. (VanDeusen retired November 30, 2020.)” Read more here about this interesting project.
Jewish Refugees after WWII
“America, a nation of immigrants, has a dark past of rejecting “the other.” This history includes the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the National Quotas Act of 1924 and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. Even in the aftermath of the Holocaust, our borders were barely open to Jewish survivors. In 1945, a million Jewish, Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Ukrainian and volksdeutsche refugees in displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria faced resettlement. Three-quarters of the million in the DP camps were not Jewish. “The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War,” David Nasaw’s new book, recounts how the United States was slow to create adequate camps for the Jewish survivors, and, in the next decade, new laws pushed back on accepting large numbers of Jewish refugees.” Read full story here.