Click here for details on the workshop schedule and how to register.

There is a natural need to understand the past, and there can be healthy outcomes for families and community members who make the effort to document their history. Today, we can connect to an earlier generation who overcame the challenges of the Great Depression, who faced social just issues during the civil rights movement, or who created strategies for healing after war.  For example, in a recent story published yesterday by the Sun Sentinal, a Florida family has found inspiration in a legacy of leadership, through the stories of an earlier generation that overcame the many obstacles of bias at that time, and did so with integrity. The Mizell family story appears to provide strength to its family members today.  Don Mizell, the article’s author states, “As we look to the future, the challenge before us now is to forge a new path of collective achievement using our family’s rich traditional values.The Mizells were, and continue to be, true pioneers. Unfortunately, there are many who continue to settle here in South Florida who remain unaware of these overlooked but still laudable figures from our state’s rich history. We’re doing our part to change that.”

I look forward to the August 14th workshop, and helping others to connect to their family or community history.

The relevance of this historic time has become strikingly apparent as we face the challenges of overcoming today’s Great Recession, and make personal decisions during a time of tremendous difficulty.  I am grateful for my grandmother’s willingness to share her personal history with me, which has given me a new perspective on the Great Depression. During an oral history interview with her, I wondered whether my personal choices will lead to a better life down the road. She reminded me of the simple things that sustain and inspire us, and the importance of not giving up hope.

As I listened to my grandmother describe her father’s nightly guitar playing and folk singing, and the happiness this brought to the family, I saw the link to my own passion for music and song for the first time.  And, as we explored the importance of her mother’s cooking and the food that came from the family garden, I was inspired to make a family favorite — bread pudding, from my great-grandmother’s recipe box.  Now a favorite recipe of mine, I have to say, it’s the brown sugar that makes it simply delicious.  What stories are waiting to be discovered in your family recipe box?

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.

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.

Clarence B. Jones

Dr. Clayborne Carson

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

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.