"That Food of the Memory which Gives the Clue to Profitable Research": Oral history as a source for local, regional, and family history in the nineteenth and early twentieth century

Abstract

Numerous local, regional and family historians in the nineteenth and early twentieth century collected oral narrations and conducted interviews as a form to document information that otherwise might have never been preserved. Family historians, in particular, not only practiced interviewing relatives for family histories, but also encouraged the practice in how-to-do manuals among their peers. While advocating the practice, family historians also reflected about the value of "traditionary evidence" collected through interviews and other means. These reflections by family historians mirrored the discussions about the value of traditions and memories as historical sources among several professional historians at the time. These reflections were shaped by a modernized understanding of tradition, which combined a reverential approach to the authoritarian element of tradition with a critical approach questioning the validity of tradition. In this context, oral history was both a tool to negotiate the value of tradition and a mirror to the contemporary understanding of tradition.