Mary River oral history project

The Looking Forward Looking Back Mary River catchment oral history project by Dr Tanzi Smith and Luke Barrowcliff, Goorie Vision, is getting the community involved in a series of meetings held at venues throughout the catchment.  Dr Smith said that they were taking the project to the people in the community with meetings at Conondale, Kenilworth and Gympie, a recent meeting at Kilkivan, and Teebar and Maryborough to follow. For full story click here.

Lady Bird Johnson oral history

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.

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.

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.

Hurricane Sandy interviews

When Hurricane Sandy came ashore, it fell to the city’s leaders and the thousands of workers at their command to secure our coasts, to rescue those trapped by water and without power, to help the city rebuild. The Observer spent Monday and Tuesday talking with New York’s top public officials about Hurricane Sandy. These are their experiences in their own words.  For full story click here

Retirement Village collects videos

When friends gather over a meal at Carleton-Willard Village, telling “war stories” isn’t just a figure of speech. A look around the table reflects a range of roles during World War II. One repaired battleships. Another flew for the Royal Air Force. Here sits a former Red Cross nurse; there a younger sister who saw her elder brother for the last time as he departed in uniform. The residents of this Bedford continuing care community, now in their 80s and 90s, were young men and women in the days of the war — yet memories of their experiences are as sharp as they were seven decades ago.  For full story, including video links, click here

Czech’s memories of World War II

Czech and Slovak Americans remember food shortages, forced labor and the horrors of concentration camps as part of their homeland experience during World War II.  Oral histories recorded as a project for the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library will shine a spotlight on that history during a special Veteran’s Day event from 2 to 4 p.m. on Nov. 11. Since 2009, the museum’s oral history project has captured the stories of Czechs and Slovaks who fled their homeland during the Cold War.  Now, they’re going back further into history and turning their focus to World War II.  For full story click here.