Women's Oral History in the Classroom: Three Views on Sources

Abstract

When I began teaching women's studies in 1974, there were no materials in what we now proudly identify as women's oral history-oral history that, guided by a feminist sensibility, leads us to an examination of women's lives, consciousness, values. Except for the work of the Bancroft Library, there were not even many available oral histories of women. Additionally, methodological articles and books never addressed the special nature of women's oral history. In those early days, I relied on several standard methodological sources: Willa Baum's booklet on local history, Norman Hoyle's article, and Lewis Dexter's book on specialized interviewing. Now, almost ten years later, there is a growing body of literature in/on women's oral history, including methodological articles and guides, published interviews, and documentary films. I draw on the full range of these materials, in different ways for different classes and different purposes. First, when I offer students the option of an oral history as a class project, in any number of classes, I insist that they read my own methodological article in the Special Issue of FRONTIERS (Women's History, 2, No. 2). This, combined with the various topical outlines published in that issue, provides them with a good basis. (In the one-unit Oral History Methods class which I teach, I rely heavily on Edward Ives, assigning my own article as a supplementary reading.) I also suggest to students that they review the entire FRONTIERS issue so that they are exposed to the various ways that oral history can be used. Their oral histories, which are the basis for an interpretive paper, have been consistently good. Second, because we lack extensive social history documents for the study of women's everyday lifeparticularly the lives of working-class women and women of color-oral history provides much of the reading for my course, Women's Lives (an interdisciplinary course on the lives of women in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present). It is especially valuable as a means of examining the lives of Latina, black, Native American, and Asian American women. Although short fragments of interviews are usually not too fruitful for an intensive examination of women's lives, I do find that sections of Las Mujeres and of the Generations issue of Southern Exposure are very useful. As short as the segments in Las Mujeres are, certain themes can be explored, including generational change. Likewise, though the oral history fragments in The Ways of My Grandmothers cannot provide the detailed exploration of consciousness that more complete life histories do, within the total context of the volume they lead to a fruitful exploration of the Native American woman. Though perhaps not technically oral history, selections in Coming Out Stories provide some moving as well as humorous insights into the lesbian experience.