Last week I was part of an all-day workshop sponsored by CERA, California Exhibition Resource Alliance, as part of the 2010 CAM conference for California museums. This free workshop offered information on technology and the visitor experience within exhibitions, how to create podcasts that inform the public about your museum, and mobile technologies that enable visitors to access information about your exhibits from their mobile phones. My presentation focused on collaborative projects that create digital media for You Tube, Flickr and museum websites that are designed to bring the untold stories of small museums to life. Here is the SlideShare presentation I’ve uploaded that includes examples of two projects on You Tube and my presenters notes. My hope is this short presentation will inspire small museums to reach big audiences with thoughtful digital media projects created with a team of museum professionals and students from a local university or school.
Learning from an earlier generation is a “two-way street.” To learn and build a deeper understanding of the past, and gain insight into the experiences and the actions of generations before us, we need to listen to their stories. When we become active and genuine listeners to those who choose to share their life history with us, we embark on a journey of discovery with them. During an oral history interview, the interviewee is exploring his/her memory of the past with the aid of the interviewer. It can be a valuable exercise for the interviewee as self-discovery leads to historic perspective. The interviewer also goes through a process of self-discovery as he/she explores how problems were solved, attitudes were developed and culture was created during historic periods.
An inspired project through the Department of Aging in Illinois is utilizing oral history to connect to earlier generations and promote learning. According to a recent press release, one such project is presented by the Center for Creative Aging at Harold Washington College, in Chicago. The exhibit is on display through February 5 and features eight Chicagoans with vivid memories of the Great Depression who tell their stories on videotape in a project called “Hard Times, Yesterday and Today: Living Chicagoans’ Experience of the Great Depression and the Current Recession.” Jacquelyn A. Mattfeld, Ph.D., is the director for the Center for Creative Aging. She says it’s important to document our stories and to use them as a learning tool. “Through this oral history project we wanted to tell the stories of how people survived through this country’s worst economic crisis and we wanted to focus on lessons they can teach us today about survival, resilience and hard work,” Mattfield said.
Practitioners in the field of oral history can make a difference through collaborative projects like this one in Chicago — projects that facilitate a “two-way street” between generations. What is the best way to approach such projects? Check out the Oral History Association’s Wiki site to learn about best practices in the field.
As we look to the leader of the largest social justice movement in the history of the United States, Martin Luther King, Jr., we are reminded of the role character plays in history, and in making change. There is no single perspective on Dr. King, rather there are many. And in all of the different ways we can understand him — whether intellectually, since he was a scholar, or spiritually, as he was a pastor, or as a leader that represented the single most powerful movement of the 20th century — what matters is that we continue to explore his role in history and the movement he represented so as to better understand ourselves.
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here are two excerpts of oral history interviews from different perspectives on his historic life through student led interviews with Dr. Clayborne Carson, Director of the Martin Luther King Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford, and Clarence B. Jones, attorney to Dr. King.
Two articles came across my Google Alerts today that highlight an important community benefit to oral history: intergenerational dialogue. Through projects and programs that facilitate listening and storytelling between generations, we learn strategies for making change by an earlier generation that faced war, overcame injustice, and struggled to end racism in our country. The first article features four women who participated “quietly” in the civil rights movement and were recognized in their community for their participation: Recognizing Quiet Courage. The second article features a terrific collaboration between a history museum and the local chapter of the AARP, who put together a visitor program in which seniors shared their stories: AARP Sponsors Free Day at National Civil Rights Museum.
Last year I had the honor of producing an oral history project with a Red Cross veteran from World War II, Erna Torney. Today, after hearing of Erna’s passing, I reflect on her story, supporting American soldiers as the Director of the Red Cross Club at her post in Flixton, England, where she witnessed airmen leaving and returning for their bombing missions in Germany.
As historian and documentary producer Charles Hardy has said, “At heart we are all storytellers and the stories we tell have consequences in how we act in the world.” Erna Torney was a storyteller with heart. What I took away mostly from her interview wasn’t a concrete understanding of the perils of war but rather a better understanding of character — the kind of human character that is tested and built during tough times. My experience with World War II oral histories up to this point had been with veterans who shared their first-hand accounts of fighting in the Pacific and Atlantic theaters. Hearing from Erna gave me and the student intern working with us another valuable perspective of that war, and I will never forget her. To hear an excerpt from her interview and see a slide show of her photographs, go to the Marin History Museum’s website link: http://www.marinhistory.org/oralhistory.html or see it on You Tube, below. Erna Torney: Story of a Red Cross Girl
Oral historians are documenting personal experiences, as history was lived by individuals, within very diverse subject areas and within small and large institutions. Good examples abound, and include oral histories with American diplomats at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s oral history program with American inventors.
Classroom projects continue to produce valuable insight as the young are helped by earlier generations to understand history from a personal perspective. Wherever we are, at the heart of our work is the interview process.
I am intrigued and constantly curious about the interview process and have a passion for learning more about it. Connecting with an interviewee taps into our social skills as well as technique, and that connection makes a tremendous difference in the dialogue that results if we are deep and active listeners. Interviewees undergo a form of self-discovery during an interview, and listening skills are the key to supporting this process. In my classroom work with college students, 8th graders and high school students, I’ve seen this connection develop between generations, giving inspiration to an interviewee to share his/her experience. I’ve also witnessed it from professionals who have created interviewing techniques that produce detailed, and very valuable documentation of historic events and issues. Inevitably, whether you are a student or a veteran practitioner in the field, we are profoundly changed by our interviews, and continually learning from each interview.
In this first blog entry, I would like to share short excerpts of two interviews that highlight the interview process, and hope to learn more from readers who can share their experiences with me. Truly valuable workshops and material from the Oral History Association launched me into this field early on, and continue to inspire me. My goal for this blog is to facilitate learning from one another about this process.
During my most recent interview, I was able to link to my own experience in a way that was helpful in developing questions, and facilitating sincere dialogue with a well-known musician and singer, Mickey Thomas of Starship.
My memories as a voice student in college aided me as I thought of questions for Mickey. Although this is one of my more informal interviews, the experience has given me more confidence as I develop my own style, while remaining committed to the standards set for interviewing within the field. The field of oral history has led me to become a multimedia artist and editor in addition to a practioner, and this interview demonstrates my interpretive approach using photographs, music and interview audio. (Community college courses can change a career!)
The second example comes from a terrific experience I had interviewing an oral historian with the Smithsonian, Maggie Dennis, an historian with the Lemelson Center at the National Museum of American History. Maggie was generous with her time and helpful with her insight into the interview process. I was sincerely curious about her approach to interviewing American inventors as she strives to document their creative process in detail, and in different fields of invention – medicine, chemistry, dance, music, etc. Click here to listen to an excerpt of her interview: DennisShortMP3
I hope these two excerpts are useful and look forward to comments.