Oral history, community, and work in the American West

Abstract

Oral History, Community, and Work in the American West. Edited by Jessie L. Embry. (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2013. Pp. v + 350, preface, introduction, photographs, afterword, contributors, index. $30.00 paper.)Oral History, Community, and Work in the American West is a collection of fifteen essays and an afterword written by individual scholars working in the western United States. According to editor Jessie L. Embry, the book as a whole examines the ways in which oral history a voice to people who rarely leave a written record...people of color, people from many different economic classes, and people with different religious views (2). The essays are divided into three parts: the uses of oral history, ways in which oral history represents overlooked groups, and oral history is in some cases the singular source of about a specific group. All three categories and the essays within illustrate that interviewing is not a new technique in historical research, but like history itself, its uses have evolved over time (3).The first section on the uses of oral history, called Reflections, contains three chapters: Embry on stories about work and in oral histories at the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University in Utah, Barbara Allen Bogart on creating through oral history, and Laurie Mercier on probing memory and experience. Each chapter looks at deeper interior landscapes, oral histories are open to interpretation, and one body of interviews can serve multiple purposes. Mercier's essay in particular is an eye-opener-it encourages us to return to already collected bodies of interviews to look for new and different meanings.While the first part of the book establishes oral history interviews as an anchor to insights and broader meanings, the second section expresses a core of regional characteristics while demonstrating how oral history gives voice to groups that were neglected in the old western history and continue to be underrepresented in the new western history, often because of limited sources (5). The emphasis on the American West is seen through projects that focus on community and/or work (encompassing both paid and unpaid labor) in nine chapters that present immigrant experiences, women's work, ethnic and racial perspectives, and the social impact and social control of history (the story) itself. These include: Indian economies in Northern California (William Bauer), Mexican Americans and the power of place (Jose M. Alamillo), labor in the Southwest (Skott Brandon Vigil), Japanese Americans in Colorado (Georgia Wier), the Las Vegas African Americans (Claytee White), women's work in Las Vegas (Joanne L. Goodwin), women's adventures in Alaska (Sandra K. Mathews), nursing school in Utah (John Sillito, Sarah Langsdon, and Marci Farr), and Utah women's activism (Melanie Newport).Part three of the book shows how oral history is often the only source of information (6). Articles on Mormons in Fort Collins, Colorado (Linda M. Meyer), fieldwork at the Nevada test site (Leisl Carr Childers), and orchard farming in Utah (Kristi Young) cover a wide range of places and topics, yet all the chapters present cases in which oral history provides the sole historical resource for understanding complex relationships, whether they be family histories, or conflicts as well as caring between such communities as ranchers and plant workers living near radioactive fallout sites. …