This episode of the Oral History Review on OUPblog, I take the opportunity to interview Michael Gillette, author of Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History. In this podcast, Gillette discusses the book, the research behind and process of interviewing “Mrs. Johnson,” and his current role as executive director of Humanities Texas. Our host, Oxford University Press, published Lady Bird Johnson at the end of last year. For full story, including podcast, click here.
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Recording a University’s past
As a co-chair of Stanford’s Oral History Program — and as a member of the Stanford community for over 50 years — Susan Schofield ’66 has lots of good stories to tell spanning a lengthy career. Click here for full story. This is a good example of an oral history program recording a University or School.
Gympie Railway History
Dr Rae Norris has heard a few stories in her time. But few have fascinated the Gympie historian as much as the ones she's hearing from former workers on the old Mary Valley railway line. Dr Norris is capturing the oral history of the rail link through research, photographs and interviews with a selection of employees who worked the line from the mid to late 20th century. Trains ran between Gympie, Imbil and Brooloo – and stations in between – carrying passengers, produce and supplies until 1994. And while the project has been a trip down memory lane for the interviewees, it's opened up a whole new world for the interviewer. For full story click here.
Oral History in the Digital Age
This week, in the spirit of the upcoming special issue on oral history’s evolving technologies, we want to (re)introduce everyone to the website Oral History in the Digital Age, a substantial collaboration between several institutions to “put museums, libraries, and oral historians in a position to address collectively issues of video, digitization, preservation, and intellectual property and to provide both a scholarly framework and regularly updated best practices for moving forward.” Includes video interview with Don Ritchie. For full story click here.
Ryan White Oral History Project (AIDS)
More than 25 years ago, Kokomo (USA) was thrown into the national spotlight when a controversy erupted over 12-year-old Ryan White, a who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984 after receiving a tainted blood transfusion. He was not allowed into his school for fear he might infect others and soon after became the national poster child for AIDs awareness. That quickly divided the community into two factions–those on the side of the school, and those on the side of Ryan White. For full story click here.
Holograms tell Holocaust stories
For 18 months, a group led by USC's Shoah Foundation has been creating three-dimensional holograms of nearly a dozen people who survived Nazi Germany's systematic extermination of six million Jews during World War II, so the stories can endure. For full story click here.
Obama’s First Term
Four years ago, on the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration, this magazine devoted nearly an entire issue to a photo essay, “Obama’s People.” The photographs, 52 of them, depicted a team arriving on a wave of hope despite inheriting an economy in trouble, a collapsing auto industry, two wars and a continuing terrorist threat. For full story click here.
Vietnamese Americans’ oral histories
In a classroom at UC Irvine, Thuy Vo Dang teaches a course called "Vietnamese American Experience" that introduces young Vietnamese to oral history practice. For years, she has collected the personal stories of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants like her own parents, even as she had a hard time speaking candidly with her own father. “When it comes to private life and home space, that’s where we see the silences, and the ghostly haunting of the Vietnam War,” she explains. “If you think about refugee trauma and refugee experience—people have left everything behind and gone through really terrifying experiences in order to build a new life, a better life. And what that actually means is that the new home space that they create is really incompatible for these sorts of stories to emerge.” For full story click here.
Recording Australian Artists and Actors
Actor Heath Ledger's memory will be honoured with an oral history project at the National Film and Sound Archive which will record the experiences of young Australian artists and actors. Click here for video news story.
Lady Bird Johnson’s Voice
Five years after her death in 2007, the tapes, mostly recorded in the yellow sitting room at the LBJ Ranch, are available to scholars. This week, Oxford University Press releases Michael Gillette’s compact and compelling “Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History.” For full story click here.