The Other Uses of Oral History

Abstract

It is a great pleasure to be here in Anchorage and to hear what you in Alaska have done already and plan to do in next few years. I was here for how-to-do-it workshop in 1974, when Alaska was just getting involved with oral history. Part of my personal goal in coming here is to get up to Fairbanks to see Oral History & Traditions Program of Alaska and Polar Regions Department at University of Alaska library and especially its statewide index of oral history. Over telephone, as we discussed my coming to this conference, I told Bill Schneider I was disappointed in our 1974 oral workshop because, despite a tremendous turnout and most attentive audience, no Alaska oral network had come out of it, nor much oral history. I see now that was a wrong impression. There has been a burst of oral in Alaska, more than in most states, though not necessarily as a result of workshop in 1974. As Allan Nevins said when he was called the father of oral history at first Oral History Association meeting in 1966, he couldn't claim fatherhood; it was just an idea whose time had come. From this workshop I hope there will emerge an oral network, a newsletter, and continuing meetings like this. I see also why I thought there was little oral being done in Alaska. Few of you belong to Oral History Association, few attend national meetings so your projects are not reported in our Oral History Association Newsletter. That can be remedied at next year's OHA meeting in Seattle; Margot Knight, program chairman, is here. Plan with her a program