The Medium and the Message: Oral History, New Media, and a Grassroots History of Working Women

Abstract

In the Spring of 2000, Ruth Meyerowitz and Christine Zinni began collaborative efforts—inside and outside of academia—to enhance a course on The History of Working Women at SUNY Buffalo. Videotaping the oral histories of women labor leaders, they later teamed up with Michael Frisch and Randforce Associates—a research group at SUNY at Buffalo's technology incubator—staff at the Educational Technology Center, and The Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education, Inc. to input and present diverse voices of working women into a new media program called Interclipper. To the group's knowledge, this was the first attempt to apply this new software technology in a university classroom setting for a course on labor history. Rendering oral histories as primary sources of service in the classroom, the new media format provided students with an alternative lens on working women's experiences—perspectives not normally gained in traditional text-based history courses. In the following narrative dialogue, Meyerowitz and Zinni trace the process and progress of their experiences with these technological applications for oral history use over 7 years time. Strengthening collaborative and decentralized aspects of classroom activities by allowing for more personal choices, involvement with the material(s) and active learning, the authors submit a multi-media, multi-perspectival approach to oral history intensified emergent and dialogical qualities of classroom interactions for students, instructors, and interviewees alike.