Category: OHAA QLD Blog

According to William S. Schneider, professor emeritus and retired curator of oral history at University of Alaska Fairbanks, the postal delivery men generally considered enduring extreme cold, high winds, driving snow and other inclement weather conditions just part of the job when they contracted to carry mail to remote regions of Interior Alaska during the first half of the 20th century. In his brief yet informative new book, “On Time Delivery,” Schneider documents the rise and heyday of rural postal service between the many small settlements that dotted the landscape during and immediately after the Gold Rush. It’s the story of men who braved the elements to maintain a connection to the outside world for people who were otherwise wintered in and largely left to their own devices. For full story click here.

A new short documentary film was screened at the Art Theater in Long Beach over the weekend, part of the Freedom and Hope Film Festival.  “The End/Beginning,” narrated by Sophal Ear, a Cambodian-American academic, traces the route his mother took to escape the Khmer Rouge through Vietnam and provide for her family along the way.  For full story click here.

The Australian Generations Oral History project is interviewing 300 people across Australia to examine the formation and significance of Australian generations. Ben Ross is the Hobart-based interviewer and told the ABC it’s really important that the stories of Tasmanians are part of the collection.  The story includes a audio interview with Ben Ross about the project. Click here for full story and contact details about the project.

A Kashmir native and current clinical Associate Professor of Urology at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has launched the Ladi Shah Project, Kashmir’s first digital oral history archive.   Khurshid A. Guru, MD, a Buffalo surgeon noted internationally for his advances and teaching in the field of robotic-assisted surgery, has created the project as an initiative of the Guru Charitable Foundation, founded by Guru and his wife, Lubna Guru, MD, a pediatrician. The project has been in development since 2009. For full story click here.

World War II veteran Kirk Kirkpatrick enthralled dozens of guests at the Touchmark retirement community’s Men’s Club meeting on May 1. The 89-year-old Flying Tiger presented an oral history of the famed fighting force, stationed in China during the war.  Wearing his bomber jacket, Kirkpatrick traced the evolution of the Flying Tigers from volunteer organization to its assimilation into the Army Air Corps 23rd Fighter Group. For full story click here.

For southeast Kansas farmers, the Great Depression marked the beginning of a transformation as machines replaced horses and the government undertook an effort to bring power to rural communities.  Forty-five farm families who lived through this period have shared their stories through an oral history project undertaken by the Southeast Kansas Farm History Center.  For full story (with links) click here.

The Rutgers Living History Society will present its Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award to Isabel Wilkerson, whose epic history, The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (Random House, 2010), tells the story of the 20th-century migration of African Americans from the south to the north.  The Rutgers Living History Society, comprised of participants in the Rutgers Oral History Archives program, will present the Ambrose Award to Wilkerson at its annual meeting on May 11.  For full story, click here.

The launch of the Listening Project by the BBC and the British Library coincides with the return next month of another pioneering work of oral history: 56 Up, the latest in Michael Apted’s now eight-part series stretching over almost half a century, following a group of ordinary Britons from the age of seven into what is now deep middle age.  For full story click here.

The Mildura office of Goulburn Murray Water contains a number of archives which hark back to the period when the lock was being built. Although these archives are fairly accessible to anyone looking for them, not a lot has been done on the history of this time. “There isn’t a great deal on record about this period,” says Helen Stagg – who recently completed a Masters in oral history on the topic. For full story, click here.