Abstract
FOR DECADES, SCHOLARS of immigration and ethnic history have recognized the value of using oral history methodology to better understand the individuals and communities they study. I have found in the course of teaching that oral history transcripts in the classroom can be valuable assets that resonate with students of all ability levels, creating a memorable experience while conveying important concepts that we expect our students to understand after participating in any course that covers these topics. There are many helpful resources available to scholars that can be readily incorporated into a course as thematically specific as “American Immigration History” or as broad as “Twentieth-Century American History”; my focus here will be on the plethora of resources that I have found particularly useful—the full-text life-course oral history interviews of the Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA). ROHA is an ongoing oral history program founded in 1994 as an affiliated center of the Rutgers-New Brunswick History Department. ROHA seeks to document the life experiences of Americans through its own oral history interviews and in partnership with individuals and entities within New Jersey carrying out similar work. ROHA makes its collection available for the benefit of scholars, students, and members of the general public across the Garden State and around the world through its digital online archive, which can be accessed by any user in the world, free of charge (oralhistory.rutgers.edu). In 1997, ROHA became one of the first oral history programs to deliver its material to a global audience through the Internet. In the years since, its online digital archive has been recognized as a world-class oral history resource. ROHA has conducted over 1,300 interviews and processed over 700 for public use, all of which are available to educators on its website.
Published Version
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