Posted by admin on September 6th, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
The OHA office is looking for a new institutional home. Hosting the country’s premier oral history association will surely bring great honor to whichever institution accepts the challenges and responsibilities.
Here’s the call for proposals. Contact the folks at the bottom of this post if you need more information.
Oral History Association:
Proposal Guidelines for Hosting Executive Office
Full proposals from institutions interested in hosting the Executive Office of the Oral History Association (OHA) are due no later than March 1, 2012. Proposals should include the following elements:
1. A narrative statement of no more than 1500 words explaining:
a. why your institution would like to host OHA and why doing so can advance the mission of your institution;
b. why the institution will be especially suitable for the OHA;
c. where the OHA Executive Office will be located within the institution’s administrative structure; the OHA is open to considering a variety of institutional arrangements.
d. how the office, staff, programs, and expertise of the OHA might be integrated into the institution and the community;
e. what financial and in-kind resources the institution will provide for:
i) a significant contribution to the FTE salary and benefits of the Executive Director;
ii) a contribution to the salary and benefits of a Program Associate;
iii) graduate assistant(s), student intern(s), or equivalent;
iv) appropriate office space, storage space, supplies, and equipment such as telephones, computers, and access to photocopier, with upgrades or replacements as necessary;
v) computer workstation for each staff member with network/internet access, support, and regular lifecycle scheduled upgrades for the Executive Director and Program Associate and best available replacement for other staff.
2. A Letter of Support from the institution’s chief administrative officer acknowledging the availability of and intention to commit resources for a minimum contract term of five years, beginning January 1, 2013, the projected starting date for OHA at the new institution.
3. Letters of Support from individuals, academic departments, programs, offices, agencies, institutions, or other entities who can contribute to a collaborative environment, in-kind support, cultural and intellectual resources, or other forms of assistance to the goals, staff, and operations of the OHA.
Please submit one copy of the proposal and supporting documents via electronic attachments to the OHA Executive Office, at oha@dickinson.edu, with the subject line “Proposal for Executive Office.”
Questions may be addressed to the Transition Committee co-chairs, Rina Benmayor (rbenmayor@csumb.edu) and Linda Shopes (lshopes@aol.com).
Posted by admin on August 11th, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: Elizabeth Rudrud, NOHA newsletter
NOHA is thrilled to have a new newsletter editor, Elizabeth Rudrud. If you have items of interest to Northwest oral history folks, please drop her a line at elizabethrudrud@gmail.com
We asked Elizabeth to introduce herself, and here’s what she said:
“I grew up in Minnesota and developed an early interest in history thanks to an engaging and thought provoking high school teacher. I obtained an undergraduate degree in American history from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington in 2009. My studies, while varied, focused on the Civil War era and the anti-slavery activism, abolitionist movement, gender issues and general political climate of the time. As a Northwestern transplant myself, and as a student of the era, I also developed an interest in westward expansion and Pacific Northwest history. Currently, I reside in Portland, Oregon enjoying the hiking, skiing and backpacking the Cascades have to offer. I work in special education classrooms assisting students with learning and developmental disabilities and am a volunteer for the Oregon Historical Society as a research library assistant, docent and oral history transcriber.”
We look forward to reading the newsletter under Elizabeth’s excellent guidance.
Posted by admin on June 16th, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: Cambodian oral history, Cambodian-American Community of Oregon, Khmer Rouge oral history, Northwest Oral History Association
The following is an interview with Sophorn Cheang and Mardine Mao, co-directors of Cambodian-American Community of Oregon’s oral history project. CACO, formed in 1989, organizes many educational, cultural and social programs. For their oral history project, nineteen young Cambodian-Americans interviewed their elders, many of whom are survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime. They produced a 36-minute documentary film from their interviews.
NOHA: Did you videotape all the interviews?
CACO: All the interviews were videotaped at our producer’s studio. Each interview took about 1 to 2.5 hours.
NOHA: Where are you storing your collection?
CACO: We are in the process of finishing up all the raw material and getting the DVDs to the participants. We have yet to have a physical location to store these collections, but are hoping that we can transcribe the interviews and have them available on our website for researchers and archives.
NOHA: Will the collection be available to the public? For instance, to independent scholars?
CACO: The 36-minute oral history documentary film is available now for purchase on our website. As we mentioned above, we are hoping to transcribe the raw material and have them available publicly soon. [Note from NOHA: If the CACO website is still under construction when you read this, copies of the film are available directly from Sophorn for $15. Email her at sophorncheang@cacoregon.org]
NOHA: Is your collection phase ongoing?
CACO: At this moment, we are not conducting any more interviews. However, we continue our outreach to the public through public screenings, and discuss the film at high schools, colleges and universities, community partners and neighborhood associations. One of our purposes is to encourage other communities who have faced similar oppression to take actions and raise awareness within their own communities.
NOHA: How old were your youth interviewers?
CACO: They ranged from 13 to 30 years of age.
NOHA: What effects has the experience of interviewing had on the youths?
CACO: In lieu of trying to answer this question ourselves, as directors of this project, we asked one of the young adults that did the interview, and below is her comment which we can safely say is a good representation of how the others feel:
Kimberly Im, CACO Interviewer: Being a part of the OH project was something I am so glad I signed up for. It was an amazing experience for both myself, my sister and my mother. I already think of my mother as wonder woman and my hero, but with this project it just makes me think even more of her, if that was even possible. I would highly suggest that all communities no matter what race, age, religion etcetera, take part in a project like this because everyone has their life stories and they should be told.
Learning about her struggles and her life story makes me put things into perspective. I am so grateful for all the things I have in my life, and for everything that she did to give me the life that I have now. Being a child raised in the posh lifestyles of the US, I have nothing to complain about or be sad about. I worry about things that are trivial compared to things my mother was worried about. She feared for her life, her family’s life. She had no food to eat, no safety, nothing. The experience robbed her and her other community members of that. She lost her childhood and the innocence that I got to have freely and without struggles.
Being a part of this project opened my eyes. It made me more compassionate and aware. I am closer to my mother after this. Tears were shed that day, hugs were given and love was spread because of this project. I also have such a strong respect for all of the members that participated in this. It was a hard thing to talk about and bring up, but it seems to only positively affect all those that were involved. Sharing a story can mean so much, and I thought that I had heard it all, but my mother brought up things in that interview that I was unaware of and was blown away by. In these genocide/war stories, the sharing part, I feel, although very hard, is cathartic. All these memories and gut-wrenching images that were suppressed and held back because of the fear and the suffering. But it seemed that once it was let go and shared, positive energy was also released. The youth and the offspring of all the survivors should be grateful for everything their parents/grandparents did for them. I am so thankful for my mother and my father for fighting so hard for life so that I could have mine. I am truly blessed and this project let me see that.
Everyone in this project was strong and wonderful. I am so proud to be a part of the OH project. I think it is and was a beautiful thing!
NOHA: What about the effects on the elders who are telling these painful stories?
CACO: While some were able to let go and got the burden out of their system, some were just telling on the surface and still holding back and find it hard to open up completely. For those who were able to open up completely and let go of their pain, they felt a sense of relief and were glad that they were able to get it out and able to share with their children. In these cases, we see that healing is beginning to take place.
NOHA: What would you like people to know about Cambodian-Americans?
CACO: We are many things, but more importantly we are survivors. We survived one of the most heinous crimes ever committed against humanity. We survived the language, cultural and other barriers; we survived the berry picking and being on the welfare system and most noticeably survived being far away and in a foreign land. While some of us are still struggling to deal with painful pasts and still dreaming to reach the American dream, many have called America home and made the American dreams; but not without hard work and sacrifice. Many young adults held numerous jobs just to make ends meet, in some cases going to school and providing for their family at the same time. Many elders are stuck at home, lonesome, by themselves while their children are either in school or working. Some of the things we value most are family and education. You can ask any Cambodians around middle age what they value the most; you’ll hear something like, “my kids getting good education and my mom being well taken care of.” Or if you ask an elderly person, you probably will get an answer something along these lines, “to see my grandchildren get a good education and to take care of his/her family when they grow up.”
While Cambodian-Americans are known to the mainstream population as the children of the killing fields, we’d like to be known as survivors and people who call America home, and people who have made a considerable contribution to America vitality. Many went on to be professionals, business owners and scholars. We also feel encouraged to see some of our youth going on to colleges and top universities. We have continued to see parents and community groups work relentlessly to empower our youth to live a productive life and become successful individuals. We hope that this documentary film will continue to inspire the younger generation to value America freedom and liberty and to work hard to make a meaningful life for themselves and their family.
Posted by admin on June 2nd, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: Don Ritchie, Matt Simek, NOHA, Northwest Oral History Association, oral history methodology, Senate history
This contribution is from Matt Simek, NOHA member.
During a recent visit to Shepherdstown, West Virginia, I was fortunate to spend some time with Donald A. Ritchie, historian of the U.S. Senate, former president of the Oral History Association, and council member of the International Oral History Association. Among his books are the widely used manual, Doing Oral History, now in its second edition, and the Oxford Handbook on Oral History. As senate historian, he and his staff conduct an oral history program, among other responsibilities of the office.
I asked Don for a few thoughts on his experience with “doing oral history” and thought his observations were worth sharing with other NOHA members….
Do you have a “most memorable” interview?
DR: All of my interviews have been memorable in some fashion, and they’ve given me an opportunity to meet some fascinating individuals and learn a great deal from them. But one that stands out in particular was with Christine McCreary, the secretary who integrated the Senate cafeteria in 1953. On her first day, she asked her senator, Stuart Symington, where she could eat lunch, and he sent her to the cafeteria without realizing that it served only white staff members. She described the consternation on her arrival, and how one of the cafeteria staff pushed a plate out so fast that it sailed past her and broke on the floor. With everyone looking at her, she simply got another plate. “And then I went back the next day, and the next day, until finally they got used to seeing me coming in there and then there was no more problems with that.” There is no written record of the segregation of dining facilities on Capitol Hill, but McCreary’s interview provided a vivid account of the atmosphere that existed in the era before civil rights legislation. Her interview is on the Senate website at .
What is your current project?
DR: The Senate Historical Office continues to conduct life review interviews with former senators and staff. Among the individuals I have recently interviewed are a senator who was appointed to fill a vacancy during the last Congress, a party floor secretary, and a staff aide to three former senators. We try to do a cross-section of people involved in the Senate, everyone from the committee clerks and parliamentarians to the barbers and telephone operators, to leave a record of how the modern Senate has functioned.
What is the ultimate value of collecting and preserving oral histories from “ordinary” citizens?
DR: Everyone has a story to tell. Those at the top were involved in high-level policy decisions, but the “ordinary” members of the Senate’s community keep the daily functioning of the institution from becoming a distraction to the policy makers. Many of the recent interviews have dealt with technological innovations, and how computers and teleconferencing abilities have facilitated (and in some cases complicated) the legislative process. Any institutionally or community based oral history project should plan to do a cross-section of interviews with those at all levels, from managers to staff, if they want to understand how things really work.
What are the most common errors of amateur oral historians?
DR: Learning how to frame questions and then listen to the answers are harder than most people expect. Good questions should never presuppose the answers, but should be open-ended enough to allow the interviewees to speak their minds. Listening also requires a great deal of concentration, to catch the unexpected responses that prompt follow-up questions.
How should oral history interviews be preserved in the digital age?
DR: Oral history has been recorded on every possible form of recording devices, many of which no longer exist. It’s important to place the recordings in a library or archives that can preserve the originals and make copies available for research. Transcribing interviews will better assure both their preservation and their use.
What are some ways to evaluate whether an interview is worth keeping?
DR: Adam Smith asserted that the real value of anything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. If you’ve gone to the trouble of collecting the materials–and have worked to maintain the basic oral history standards–then you have an obligation to preserve them for future researchers. The interviewees will not be around forever, and your interview may be the only record that person leaves behind. Interviews that may initially seem disappointing may have different meaning and worth to future researchers, because other evidence will have shed new light on the matters being discussed. But interviews that lack deeds of gift to establish copyright may severely reduce the accessibility of that material for other researchers. (Note: The internet offers many examples of interview consent forms and transcript release forms that can easily be adapted to your specific needs. MS)
Will a third edition of Doing Oral History update changing technology?
DR: The first edition came out in 1995 and the second in 2003. Between those years, the digital revolution occurred and affected almost every phase of conducting and preserving interviews. Only the basic human element of doing an interview remained unchanged. Technology has continued to evolve at a fast clip, particularly the use of the Internet to make oral history more available on a worldwide basis. Oral historians have also grown even more creative in the ways they package and present interviews to the public. I have collected a great deal of material for a new edition and am beginning to put it together. I am eager to hear from users of the book about issues and items they would like to see in the next edition.
(Don Ritchie can be reached by writing oralhistorians@comcast.net.)
Posted by admin on May 10th, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
by NOHA member Susan King, owner of Tales on Tape in Sea Ranch, California
As those involved in capturing oral histories know, the subjects chronicled can span from the personal life events of an individual to the experiences of many united by a common circumstance.
Over the years I have had the honor of participating in capturing the life stories of a wide variety of individuals. I have just completed my most moving chronicle yet. My project is summarized here in order to share the project content, interview style, and product delivery used in hopes new and experienced storycatchers may find my approach of interest or at minimum confirm for us all the process continues in all shapes and sizes.
My storyteller is a woman in her early 70s who is limited in her time remaining on the planet. Over a six-month span we met weekly for an hour or two. Our intent was to record, for her family and future generations, her life’s remembrances and experiences as a citizen of Germany during World War II.
Throughout our weekly interviews we were able to capture her experiences beginning in 1945 when she recalls, as a 5 year-old, her family life in war-torn Germany and moves through her remembrances of the bombing of Dresden and its aftermath. As her story continues, she recalls the harshness of living and growing up in East Germany under the Russian occupancy, and her solo escape from East Germany to the West at age seventeen. Her story reveals the early activities of a refugee in West Germany and the fears, uncertainty and struggles of establishing a new life in what at times seemed to be a foreign location. Eventually, she immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York the night of the great 1965 blackout to start her new life. Our story concludes as she is heading to California with her employer’s family after surviving her first year as a nanny in New York.
Through a conversational style interview we were able to capture not only the facts of her actions but, at times, the emotions within and behind her experiences. The interview structure itself was fluid, often based on my storyteller’s energy and focus…..sometimes linear in nature and sometimes subject area driven. The objective wasn’t to capture each step in her life but more to reveal what situations have contributed to creating the woman she has become.
With special packaging produced on a desktop home computer, the final product was presented in a fourteen CD Set with each CD insert displaying actual family pictures of the time period covered or archival pictures representing the story being told.
Throughout my years interviewing, as I am sure throughout yours, each project we take on creates its own unique experiences for both the storycatcher and storyteller. For me, this particular interaction has resulted in not only a slice of history to be honored and remembered within the family but also in a dear friendship so surprising it’s hard to explain. Interesting….maybe that’s why I’m the storycatcher and not the storyteller. Either way, we both have been rewarded by the experience.
Posted by admin on May 2nd, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
Those of you in the Portland area are invited to our first Portland oral history meet-up at Blue Olive Mediterranean Cafe on Monday, May 9, from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. We will meet in this informal atmosphere to share stories and ideas about our projects. Pros, amateurs and the merely curious are all encouraged to attend. Blue Olive is located at 2712 NE Alberta Street. Join us for appetizers and/or a drink at this no-host event. Please RSVP to teresatranscribes@yahoo.com so we can let Blue Olive know how many people to expect.
Posted by admin on April 29th, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: Albert Starr, George Saslow, Gus Tanaka, Harold Osterud, History of Medicine Project, Matt Simek, Oregon Medical Association, Oregon Medical Education Foundation
Post by Matt Simek, Producer, History of Medicine Project, Oregon Medical Education Foundation
I remember being shocked when I finished my residency and returned to Ontario, how primitive the operating room was. There was no air conditioning … there was a nun who circulated, swatting flies while we operated, because the flies would get in through the open windows. Gus Tanaka, MD
For more than a decade, the Oregon Medical Education Foundation (OMEF) and the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) have been collecting a fascinating array of in-depth interviews from practitioners of the healing arts. Now numbering nearly 70 oral histories of allopathic physicians, osteopathic physicians, traditional healers, and others, the OMEF/OHSU goal is a multi-part documentary film on the history of medicine in Oregon, from Native Americans to the present day.
My … oldest brother, Eldy, examined me to make sure that I wasn’t hurt, … And he said, “Well, I’m going to be a doctor.” And he looked at my next brother, Kenny, and he said, “You’re going to be a dentist.” He looked at my sister. “You’re going to be a nurse.” And he said to me, “You’re going to be an undertaker.” I said, “I am not! I’m going to be a doctor!” I was five years old. I never changed my mind. Harold Osterud, MD
The project’s Steering Committee, chaired by dedicated historians including Dr. Harold Osterud and Dr. Roy Payne, has guided the project’s vision through a broad spectrum of topics and personalities. Project participants have included NOHA members Sara Piasecki (formerly OHSU), Maija Anderson (Head, OHSU Historical Collections and Archives), Teresa Bergen (transcriptions) and Matt Simek (producer). Oral history recordings have been taken all across the state and have ranged from 30 minutes to nearly four hours. As project funding grows, producers expect to complete its first broadcast program in two years.
The first ASD that we did was using a well technique, in which a rubber dam is attached to the right atrium and the clamp is removed from the atrium and blood comes into the dam, and then you could put your finger in and feel the atrial septal defect and then, by feel, suture a patch in the defect. Albert Starr, MD
In the near future, as the Oregon Medical Association revises its website, streaming video clips from these oral history interviews will be posted at www.theoma.org … click on the History of Medicine In Oregon project on the Home Page to see new clips as they are periodically added.
When I arrived in Oregon … psychiatry had just become familiar with a new drug, Thorazine, which had not existed until about 1954. … South Hospital had been designed in 1950, ’51, before this drug had been discovered. At that time, they used the hot tubs, they used ice cold packs to wrap patients in.… They used electric shock with great frequency…. The treatment had changed entirely by the time the hospital was opened. George Saslow, PhD, MD
Posted by admin on April 18th, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: FC Media, Morgen Young, NASL, Oregon Historical Society, Portland Timbers, Soccer City USA
Timbers fever has been sweeping Portland lately. Now fans can see an oral history-based exhibit on Portland’s soccer history at the Oregon Historical Society. The exhibit opened April 15 and will run through September 4, 2011. Click here for more information about the OHS and details about this exhibition.
The exhibit curators, Morgen Young and Michael Orr, have collected uniforms, photographs, and other memorabilia from players and fans.
Young was kind enough to write the following article for the NOHA newsletter:
Soccer History: Chronicling the Portland Timbers
I am the historian for FC Media, a Portland based company created to document and preserve soccer club history. Our initial focus is the Portland Timbers and I am overseeing a large oral history project relating to the history of the team. We have interviewed eighteen people for the project so far, with more interviews scheduled. We have interviewed former players, staff, management, players’ families, media personalities and fans. There is a lack of scholarship on the history of the Timbers, so as a company we chose to first emphasize the early roots of the team. The Timbers were formed in 1975, as the twentieth team of the North American Soccer League. Many players stayed in Portland following their respective tenures with the club and went on to shape the soccer culture in the city, through youth academies, collegiate programs and professional iterations of the Timbers. We hope to make the transcripts of our oral histories, as well as audio files of the interviews themselves, available to the public in the future through either a Timbers-specific archive or donation to an existing repository. These oral histories formed the foundation of our research for an upcoming exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society, “Soccer City USA: The Portland Timbers and the NASL Years, 1975-1982,” opening April 15th and running through the end of the summer.
For more information about Morgen’s work, click here.
Posted by admin on March 30th, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
Calling oral historians who are researching emerging disasters: The Oral History Association is awarding a grant of up to $3,000 to an oral historian chronicling a crisis in the United States or internationally. These funds may be applied to travel, per diem, or transcription costs for research in places and situations in which a longer application time schedule may be problematic. Such crisis situations include but are not limited to wars, natural disasters, political and or economic/ethnic repression, or other currently emerging events of crisis proportions.
Applications should be formatted in Microsoft Word and sent electronically by
May 1, 2011, to: oha@dickinson.edu<mailto:oha@dickinson.edu>
For more information, go to http://www.oralhistory.org/award/emerging-crisis-research-fund/
Posted by admin on February 16th, 2011 — Posted in Uncategorized
Those of you who want to learn more about oral history might be interested in a couple of upcoming educational opportunities.
Baylor University Institute for Oral History is again offering its live audio workshop, “Getting Started with Oral History.”
Stephen Sloan, part of Baylor's "Getting Started with Oral History" Faculty
The interactive workshop meets on two consecutive Wednesdays, April April 13 and April 20, from 10:00 a.m. CDT to 1:00 p.m. CDT. They’ve held this workshop before to great acclaim. Oral history luminaries Stephen Sloan, Lois Myers, Elinor Mazé, and Michelle Holland will lead the workshop, which is designed to help participants plan and begin an oral history project. It’s quite a deal at only $75. In addition to the workshop, your fee will get you online access to all reading materials and ongoing consultation for your oral history project. Only 50 spaces are available, so register ASAP if you’re interested.
For those who can get away to New York this summer:
Columbia University Oral History Research Office (OHRO) puts on a special oral history summer institute every year. This year the theme is “Rethinking 9/11: Life Stories, Cultural Memories and the Politics of Representation.”
Mary Marshall Clark, Director of Columbia's Oral History Research Office
The institute will be held June 13-June 24, 2011. Columbia has an extensive collection called the “September 11, 2001 Narrative and Memory Project.” Participants will draw from this material. Faculty and fellows will explore the political, cultural, psychological, ethical and personal dimensions of documenting urban injury and recovery.
Tuition is $1500. A few scholarships will be available. Applications are due on March 15, 2011. Click here for more information.