The nuclear legacy in the Marshall Islands is having a lingering effect on the handing down of the country’s oral history. An investigation by the Los Angeles Times examined the high rates of thyroid cancers in the Marshall Islands, where the US detonated dozens of nuclear weapons in the 1940s and ’50s. See full article, including interview here.
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Studs Terkel Radio Archive
“Hello everyone! It has been awhile since the last newsletter but the Studs Terkel Radio Archive is still alive and kicking, just as Studs would have wanted. We’re constantly adding new, fully digitized and freely available conversations to our website. Of the around 300 boxes of audio tapes we initially had, only 50 remain for conversion! Here’s just 3 of the terrific conversations we’ve added over the past few months.” This is a great project, see full story here.
Aberfan Mining Disaster
“For history buffs, the title card at the beginning of The Crown Season 3, Episode 3—“Aberfan, Wales”—will provoke an instant sense of dread. But for most viewers, particularly in the United States, this episode will serve as an introduction to one of the most devastating incidents in modern British history. As chronicled in the horrifying episode, the 1966 Aberfan mining disaster killed 144 people, most of them children, and became a moment of public reckoning for the queen. Here’s what you need to know about the real story behind the episode.” For full story with a link to the BBC’s exhaustive oral history of this tragedy, click here.
Indigenous Languages Exhibition
The latest exhibition at the State Library of Queensland will explore the survival and revival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and provide a different perspective of the arrival of Europeans to the Australian east coast. For full story click here.
Voices from the Skeena
Settlers called it the Skeena, but this mighty river, B.C.’s second longest, has been known for millennia as the Xsien, “the juice of the clouds,” by the Tsimshian and Gitxsan peoples. It flows 570 km from the sacred headwaters of the Spatszi plateau south and west to Spokechute/Port Essington, where it joins the sea. Read the full article which includes a link to the accompanying website with more audio interviews here.
Migration Heritage Project
2019 marks the beginning of many anniversaries associated with the construction and opening of migrant workers camps and hostels and the arrival of the first post World War 2 migrants to our region, commencing with the 70th anniversary of the opening of the first migrant Hostel in Unanderra, following in 2020 with the 70th anniversary of the commencement of the construction of the Balgownie Hostel and in 2021 the 70th anniversary of the first influx of migrants to the Balgownie Hostel and the operation of Berkeley Hostel. For full story click here.
Memory Maps
Think about the neighbourhood you grew up in. Where was your house? How far away was your school? The nearest park? Which paths did you take to get to these places? If you had to draw a map of that neighbourhood today, from your memories, how would it look? For full story click here.
Architecture and Oral History
A new book providing the first comprehensive account, and theorization, of oral history as a method in architectural research. For full story click here.
Journalist reports on JFK assassination
Darwin Payne was a 26-year-old reporter for the Dallas Times Herald the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Assigned to the rewrite desk, Payne dashed to Dealey Plaza and wound up being one of the first to speak to Abraham Zapruder about the home video that vividly froze the assassination in time. For full story click here.
Belfast Project
Ivor Bell, a former Irish Republican Army (IRA) leader, was aquitted last week of the 1972 kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville, for which he was accused at least in part due to tapes recorded as part of a research project at Boston College. In a statement to The Heights, former IRA member Anthony McIntyre noted his satisfaction with the court’s ruling. McIntyre, who was imprisoned for 18 years on murder charges before earning a Ph.D. in history, was responsible for conducting many of the Belfast Project interviews with former republicans. For full story click here.