Steve Young, is the producer of a documentary series, Our American Family. Our American Family is a new documentary project for PBS viewers, telling the stories of everyday families from the first half of the 1900’s, in the voices of those who grew up in that time. See this web site. http://www.ouramericanfamilytv.com/ [This would be a good idea for the ABC to do on Australian families.]
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Rivers and oral history
Rivers have always been sites for stories, myths and rituals as well as political conflict. Historian Heather Goodall in her talk Geographies of Memory: Oral History and Contested Rivers in Australia, held recently and organised by the Centre for Public History, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, provided an analysis of the relation of man to rivers and the ever-changing nature of rivers. For full story click here.
Nevada Nuclear Testing
“We used to get up in the morning, drive out to the highway and watch the blast. There was a regular caravan of cars going out. We’d park on the side of the road, wait until it was all over, go home, have breakfast, get the kids off to school and then go to work.” That’s how Gail Andress remembers the nuclear testing 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas in the early 1950s. For full story click here.
Akenfield – Portrait of an English Village
Akenfield – Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe http://www.amazon.co.uk/Akenfield-Portrait-English-Twentieth-Classics/dp/0141181168 was published in 1999 and is a classic oral history study of an English village. The interviews were done 30 years earlier in a small Suffolk village and examines all aspects of the lives of the people who lived there. In 2009 Lynn Abrams wrote an essay looking at the contribution this book has made to oral history. Read her essay here.
Beagle Bay Chronicles
Award winning director Cymbeline Buhler was in the audience of a concert at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains when the idea for a unique story telling project began. Beagle Bay Chronicles is now at the final stages of rehearsals in Broome, with performances in the town this weekend ahead of a show at the historic Beagle Bay church. The production is based on interviews with elders in the Beagle Bay community, which were recorded last year by local Indigenous children and young people from Melbourne with a migrant or refugee background. For full story and radio interview click here.
Museum of Democracy Competition Winner
You've probably heard about the competition we were running with the Museum of Democracy at Old Parliament House. They were looking to find that special story from the person who would be chosen to be the 300th oral history for them to record. The brief was to find someone who had a connection with Old Parliament House and a great story to tell. The winner is Quentin O'Keefe. Read her story here.