“A World War II oral history project is now available to the world. The original recordings were digitized and posted online with the help of a $6,700 grant awarded by the Ohio History Fund to the Center for Archival Collections at Bowling Green State University.” Read fully story with link to project here.
Tag: World War II
Veterans’ Affairs Oral History Project
David Watt was working in a menswear store in Palmerin St, Warwick when he was called up to serve in World War II. He was 18 years old and, like the rest of his mates, thought the whole affair would be over in a couple of months. Mr Watt’s personal account of his time at war will be added to hundreds of other veterans’ stories as part of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Oral History Project. For full story click here.
Papua New Guineans’ World War II Memories
A new website has been created to collect the memories of Papua New Guineans who experienced World War II. See full story here.
Rosie the Riveter
For many American families, the Great Depression and Dust Bowl struck like swift punches to the gut. New Deal work relief programs like the Works Progress Administration tossed lifelines into the crushing economic waves, but many young people soon started looking farther west for more stable opportunities. Read full article and watch video interview excerpts here.
The Power of Witness in Oral History
Oral history is the collection of the reminiscences of ordinary people as a valued part of the story of a time or an event told from the perspective of those who were caught up in it rather than from the view of the elite that orchestrated it. For full article click here.
Seattle’s Working Women of World War II
After Pearl Harbor, the United States went to war, and Seattle became a total blackout town – no lights anywhere at night. Spotters scanned the skies and scoured the waters of Puget Sound, looking for Japanese war planes and submarines. People of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps inland. Soon, everything became scarce, from butter to sugar to cloth. And Seattle’s industries mobilized to produce the machines of war, with women leading the charge to build them. For full story click here.
Canadian WWII Veterans
A new exhibit at the Dorval Museum of Local History and Heritage brings the bloody conflict to life with stories and souvenirs from some of Dorval’s own veterans. Survival and Resilience: A Tribute to World War II Veterans showcases artifacts belonging to more than a dozen veterans as well as a video featuring first-person accounts from three local veterans, still living and now in their 90s. See full story and watch video here.
Rosie the Riveter Project Continues (USA)
PNG Kokoda Track Stories
Researchers from PNG and Australia's Deakin University are drawing on the expertise of historians and locals to gather first-hand accounts of Papua New Guineans wartime experience along the Kokoda Track. For full story including ABC radio interview, click here.
Japanese American Oral History Program
The Manzanar Committee announced on March 26 that Dr. Arthur A. Hansen, renowned scholar and co-founder of the Japanese American Oral History Program, and educator and former Manzanar incarceree Mas Okui have been chosen as the 2014 recipients of the Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award. A pioneering effort over four decades, the Japanese American Oral History Project recorded and transcribed hundreds of interviews and, periodically, illuminated their contents and perspectives in published anthologies and unpublished theses. Along with Mitson, Hansen also coordinated the first lecture series on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, which included a presentation by Embrey. Hansen and Mitson also authored the pioneering oral history book “Voices Long Silent: An Oral History Inquiry into the Japanese American Evacuation.” For full story click here.