Oral History Program Research Articles

Much To Be Done: Private Life in Ontario from Victorian Diaries by Frances Hoffman, Ryan Taylor, and: I Bless You in My Heart: Selected Correspondence of Catharine Parr Traill ed. by Carl Ballstadt, Elizabeth Hopkins, Michael A. Peterman

Morris was “no longer treated in himself” (132) by Communist intellectuals of the 1930s, who attempted primarily “to deploy him as an aid to facilitate the swaying of public opinion” (132). Weinroth seems unwilling to “deploy” Morris in even so reified a fashion; he “in himself” or as represented by his works is, quite simply, left unaccounted for. p e t e r sinnem a / York University Frances Hoffman and Ryan Taylor, Much To Be Done: Private Life in On­ tario from Victorian Diaries (Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., 1996). vi, 278. $19.95 paper. Carl Ballstadt, Elizabeth Hopkins, and Michael A. Peterman, eds., I Bless You in My Heart: Selected Correspondence of Catharine Parr Traill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996). xxi, 437. $39.95 cloth. Much To Be Done is probably best described as a series of linked essays on private life in nineteenth-century Ontario that are based on “diaries, a few extracts from letters, in addition to quotations from other publications” (vi) written chiefly during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Each essay highlights a different aspect of domesticity in the British North Amer­ ican province called sequentially during this period Upper Canada, Canada West, and Ontario. Although the authors intended originally to include “only writings from the diaries of women living in Victorian Ontario ... , as the pleasure of discovering and reading diaries progressed, it became clear that there would be some input from men” (v). As a result, the essays are drawn from the works of “fifty women” and “six men” (v), whose lives are summarized briefly in a section on “Biography.” Their writings are listed in the “Bibliography” that concludes Much To Be Done along with “Ac­ knowledgements,” “Notes,” an “Index,” and an entry “About the Authors,” Frances Hoffman, an “oral historian” (277) at the Kitchener Public Library, and Ryan Taylor, a librarian who “began the oral history programme” (278) at this library. The National Library of Canada catalogued this volume under “OntarioSocial conditions-19th century.” It is, however, a slightly awkward produc­ tion, somewhere between history and literature, life documents and critical interpretation, and data, in so far as diaries and other similar writings report facts, and opinions. Yet its contents and the modesty of its presentation kept me reading and in the end gave me both instruction and delight. I was particularly intrigued by details on such topics as “Illness,” “Fu­ nerals and Mournings,” and “Celebrations and Holidays.” A diarist, for 105 example, who visits Lakefield, Ontario, in 1891 and meets Catharine Parr Traill, records reservations that the “venerated author” held about “current medical practice: She is 91 years old. Had Grippe [influenza] last winter and was recom­ mended during convalescence to take brandy and water, which she did not do. Explained afterwards to Mrs Tate that she was afraid of contracting a bad habit. (172) The Victorians’ “fear of being buried alive” was the reason, according to the authors, that a “noisy wake was considered to be a good precautionary measure” (189). Their inclusion from Sara Jeannette Duncan’s The Imperi­ alist (1904) of her description of “The Queen’s Birthday” and the “ ‘rhyme about it — The Twenty-fourth of May Is the Queen’s Birthday If you don’t give us a holiday, W e’ll all run away’ ” (232) took me back to my own childhood in London, Ont., where we all cheerfully chanted the ditty to honour the day — not the weekend — that still “marked the beginning of summer, when light-coloured clothes could first be worn” (232). These essays, then, provide not only glimpses “into a bygone era” (vi) but also points of departure for the postmodern and multicultural Ontario that we are today. As it happens, Much To Be Done also provides contexts for I Bless You in My Heart. This volume includes one hundred and thirty-six of the “nearly five hundred” (ix) letters of Catharine Parr Traill that are known to be ex­ tant. When the editors chose the letters to be published, their “immediate aim” was to “make Catharine’s personality, experiences, and interests acces­ sible to general as well as specialist readers” (ix). Certainly, from this point of view the...

Presenting the Past: Essays on History and the Public

In recent years, has been increasingly popularized through television docudramas, museums, paperback historical novels, grassroots community projects, and other representations of historical knowledge. This collection of lively and accessible essays is the first examination of the rapidly growing field called public history. Based in part on articles written for the Radical History Review, these eighteen original essays take a sometimes irreverent look at how is presented to the in such diverse settings as children's books, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Statue of Liberty, Presenting the Past is organized into three areas which consider the role of mass media (Packaging the Past), the affects of applied (Professionalizing the Past) and the importance of grassroots efforts to shape historical consciousness (Politicizing the Past). The first section examines the large-scale production and dissemination of popular by mass culture. The contributors criticize many of these Hollywood and Madison Avenue productions that promote historical amnesia or affirm dominant values and institutions. In Professionalizing the Past, the authors show how non-university based professional historians have also affected popular historical consciousness through their work in museums, historic preservation, corporations, and government agencies. Finally, the book considers what has been labeled people's history - oral projects, slide shows, films, and local exhibits - and assesses its attempts to reach such diverse constituents as workers, ethnic groups, women, and gays. Of essential interest to students of history, Presenting the Past also explains to the general reader how Americans have come to view themselves, their ancestors, and their heritage through the influence of mass media, popular culture, and public history. Author note: Susan Porter Benson is Associate Professor and Chair of History at Bristol Community College in Massachusetts. Stephen Brier is Director of the American Social History Project and Senior Research Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Roy Rosenzweig is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Oral History Program at George Mason University in Virginia.

"I Give the Best Part of My Life to the Mill": An Oral History of Icy Norman

Bounded by the fall line and the coastal plain on the southeast and the Appalachian Mountains on the northwest lies the southern Piedmont, the first part of the South to undergo industrialization. By 1880, southern farmers were leaving the land for the textile, tobacco, and furniture factories springing up on the banks of the region's rivers and the outskirts of dusty market towns. By the eve of World War II, the country's tobacco and textile industries had concentrated in the South, and southern workers looked more often to the factory than the farm for their livelihood. The timing of southern industrialization presented a unique opportunity to record the experiences of and women who left behind the working rhythms of sun and seasons to live by the mill bell and the time clock. In 1978, the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study the industrialization of the Piedmont. At the end of two years, approximately 250 interviews had been conducted with tobacco, furniture, cotton, hosiery, and glove workers in five core communities in North and South Carolina.' Icy Norman was one of those workers; she lived in Alamance County, North Carolina, in the Piedmont Heights mill village of the town of Burlington. Alamance County was the site of some of the South 's pioneer cotton mills, the earliest built in 1837. Nearly a century later, Alamance witnessed the birth of Burlington Industries, now the world's largest textile company. Alamance County textile workers not only knew the shift from farm to factory, but they also suffered the transformation that took place on the shop floor when water-driven, familyowned mills gave way to corporate-controlled factories that stressed scientific management and employed technologies that stretched the endurance of mill workers. J. Spencer Love, who founded Burlington Industries in 1923, was the prototype of the new mill men who emerged after World War I, leading the southern textile industry in rationalized mill management.2 When Icy Norman retired from Burlington Industries in 1976, she had worked for the company longer than any other employee, nearly fifty years. She was unusual in remaining at one mill for so long; the southern textile labor force as a whole was highly mobile. But Icy had the common experience of moving from farm to factory, and she lived through the technological and managerial revolutions of the twentieth-century textile industry. Icy never married, and her brothers and sister left Burlington. She lives alone in a small, neat mill house, but Icy-by no means-considers herself lonely. She uses the simile, like a family, to describe her relationship with her fellow workers and bosses. The phrase, like a family, cropped up in dozens of interviews. Workers used this image not to invoke a picture of Norman Rockwell family life, but to encompass the complexity and density of the family dynamic that pervaded mill life. In many cases, family was literal. Southern mills encouraged the migration of whole families to mill villages. Mothers taught daughters how to spin, fathers and sons worked side by side. But the bonds offamily extended beyond blood kin. Interdependence, warmth, and tolerance, as well as arbitrary authority, competition, and disagreements, knit together the men, women, and children who peopled the South 's mills and mill villages. Icy Norman 's story is, in more than one way, a family history.

Selected Bibliography, 1984-1985

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsShirley E. StephensonShirley E. Stephenson is Associate Director/Archivist of the Oral History Program, California State University, Fullerton; coeditor of A Guide for Oral History Programs (1973), author of Editing and Indexing Guidelines for Oral History (1983), and Oral History Collection (1985).

An Oral History Program on the Battle of Little Bighorn from the Perspective of the Indian Descendants

The general objective of this research is to develop an oral history program on the Battle of Little Bighorn from the perspective of the Northern Cheyenne Indian descendants of this famous encounter with General George A. Custer and the U.S. 7th Cavalry.

Interviewing Contemporary Texas Legislators: An Atypical Approach

Research Article| October 01 1985 Interviewing Contemporary Texas Legislators: An Atypical Approach Ronald E. Marcello Ronald E. Marcello Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The Public Historian (1985) 7 (4): 53–64. https://doi.org/10.2307/3377550 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Ronald E. Marcello; Interviewing Contemporary Texas Legislators: An Atypical Approach. The Public Historian 1 October 1985; 7 (4): 53–64. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3377550 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentThe Public Historian Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1985 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

An Oral History Program on the Battle of Little Bighorn from the Perspective of the Indian Descendants

The general objective of this research is to develop an oral history program on the Battle of Little Bighorn from the perspective of the Northern Cheyenne Indian descendants of this famous encounter with General George A. Custer and the U.S. 7th Cavalry. The specific objectives are: 1. Complete oral history interviews with no less than 15 informants of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, who shall be selected by the National Park Service; 2. Transcribe all interviews in the form of typed manuscripts; and 3. Develop a cross-referenced retrieval index system. An optional objective is to provide training in oral history methodology for personnel identified by the National Park Service who might continue the program.

Review: The UCLA Oral History Program: Catalog of the Collection, by Constance S. Bullock

Review: <i>The UCLA Oral History Program: Catalog of the Collection</i>, by Constance S. Bullock

Canadian Architectural Archives at the University of Calgary Libraries

Les «Archives d'architecture du Canada» (The Canadian Architectural Archives) aux bibliothèques de l'Université de Calgary furent établies en 1974; les premières grandes collections entrèrent par moyen de don en 1975 et, par la suite, les Archives se sont enrichies considérablement. Les collections comprennent surtout des desseins, des dossiers et des photographies, avec quelques modèles. Les Archives ont pour objectif de favoriser Vétude et la recherche et de conserver les collections. Sont comprises dans les grandes collections celles de John B. Parkin et Associés, Arthur Erickson et Ron Thorn ainsi que plusieurs collections d'importance de Toronto, Calgary et Vancouver. Les collections sont organisées d'après les principes archivistiques de l'ordre d'entrée et de la provenance. Divers répertoires et inventaires facilitent l'accès aux projets de construction individuels et un plus large contexte biographique est fourni à l'aide d'un programme d'histoire orale. À quelques exceptions près, tous ces instruments de recherche se trouvent dans la salle de lecture des Archives; les personnes venant de l'extérieur de la ville ou de la province pourront se prévaloir d'une aide à la recherche, quoi que limitée. Les Archives fourniront, conformément aux règlements des droits d'auteur, des copies de pièces ou d'extraits pour fins de recherche, d'exposition ou de publication.

Selected Bibliography, 1982-1983

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsShirley E. StephensonShirley E. Stephenson is Associate Director/Archivist of the Oral History Program, California State University, Fullerton; president of the Southwest Oral History Association; coauthor of A Guide for Oral History Programs (1973); and author of Editing & Indexing Guidelines for Oral History (1978, 1983).

The UCLA Oral History Program: Catalog of the Collection.

The UCLA Oral History Program: Catalog of the Collection.

Echoes from the South: The History and Methodology of the Duke University Oral History Program, 1972-1982

Echoes from the South: The History and Methodology of the Duke University Oral History Program, 1972-1982

The Zimbabwe Documentation Project

This stage of the Zimbabwe documentation project was made possible by a UNESCO grant which the National Archives sought after Independence in order to locate, list and where possible acquire or copy documentation in Britain relating to Zimbabwe from the earliest times through to the present. Such documentation was seen as ranging from manuscript material through to films and photographs and certain printed and published material. Most of the latter category comprises the output of the Zimbabwe liberation movement when it was in exile in the 1960s and 1970s, which obviously it was difficult to acquire in Rhodesia at that time. In fact it remains difficult to acquire even now since much of it tended to be ephemeral in nature. (The national library is part of the Zimbabwe Archives, which is why the project also encompasses printed items). The intention was also to supplement the written record by interviewing relevant people in Britain for our Oral History Programme.

Labor Studies in the South

The Fourth Biennial Southern Labor Studies Conference will meet in Atlanta, September 30-October 2, 1982. The program will include both traditional and working class history, and David Montgomery (Yale University) has agreed to de liver the keynote address. One of the highlights of the Conference will be a twenty year retrospective on the publication of E.P. Thompson's The Making of the Eng lish Working Class. Selected papers of the Second Southern Labor Studies Conference, 1978, were recently released by Greenwood Press. The volume, entitled Southern Work ers and their Unions 1880-1975, and edited by Merl Reed, Leslie Hough, and Gary Fink, includes essays on black workers, civil rights, women, southern coal miners, and a more broadly focused essay by Lorin Lee Cary (University of Toledo) on middle-echelon labor leaders. The Atlanta Labor History Project, under the auspices of the Southern Labor Archives, continues to sponsor public programs on the history of working Atlan tans between the 1880s and the World War II era. Project results are disseminated through articles in the labor press, field trips, public seminars, the development of a labor history tour, and the identification and documentation of significant labor historical sites. Much of the work has been directed by Clifford M. Kuhn (UNC) and has been partially funded through grants from the Georgia Endowment for the Humanities. The Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, under the directorship of Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, continues its investi gation of Piedmont industrialization. Hundreds of interviews have been completed and project workers are now beginning to analyze and interpret the results of their research. For information contact Professor Hall through the Department of His tory, UNC. Mary Frederickson (UNC) and Dale Newman (University of Pittsburgh) re cently conducted a series of public programs reconstructing the history of Georgia textile workers through slide tape media presentations, panel discussions and inter changes with the audience. The programs were held in various textile towns and were targeted toward textile workers and their families.

Oral History, Public History, and Historic Preservation: California Birds of a Feather

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsKnox MellonKnox Mellon is a former treasurer of the Oral History Association (1967-1975). He is currently State Historic Preservation Officer for California and Executive Secretary of the State Historical Resources Commission. From 1960 to 1975 he was Professor of History and Director of the Oral History Program at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles.An earlier version of this paper was presented as the keynote address at the plenary session of the Fifteenth Annual Oral History Association Colloquium, Durango, Colorado, October 3, 1980.

Jessie A. Garrett and Ronald C. Larson, editors. &lt;italic&gt;Camp and Community: Manzanar and the Owens Valley&lt;/italic&gt;. Fullerton: Oral History Program, California State University. 1977. Pp. xvi, 233. $7.95

Jessie A. Garrett and Ronald C. Larson, editors. Camp and Community: Manzanar and the Owens Valley. Fullerton: Oral History Program, California State University. 1977. Pp. xvi, 233. $7.95 Get access Garrett Jessie A. and Larson Ronald C., editors. Camp and Community: Manzanar and the Owens Valley. Fullerton: Oral History Program, California State University. 1977. Pp. xvi, 233. $7.95. Anne Loftis Anne Loftis Menlo Park, California Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 83, Issue 2, April 1978, Pages 555–556, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/83.2.555-a Published: 01 April 1978

The French Social Security Oral History Project: Philosophies, Goals, and Methods

Establishing oral history consists not in collecting together archives already in existence, but in producing oral documents to replace and supplement written documents. Oral documentation appears to be particularly suited to preserve and transmit all oral traditions which have left no written traces, including descriptions of patterns of occupational behavior and of everyday life. Oral history seems a priori to be less well adapted to document the history of governmental administrative organizations insofar as such organizations operate by way of texts and in accordance with written rules, and agencies produce chroniclers who write their history even as the events are actually taking place. Paradoxically, however, the history of the French Social Security constitutes a subject which lends itself exceptionally well to the establishment of an oral history. Financed by the Interministerial Committee for the History of the Social Security, an oral history program was entrusted to the Center for Historical Research. The project began April, 1975 and is still in progress. As of May, 1976, twenty-three persons have been interviewed and forty-six interviews have been conducted. This program is the first oral history undertaking in France, and it is to serve as a model for other projects currently being prepared. The history of the Social Security is at once the history of legislation, the history of organization (the Caisses), the history of a central State administration,' and the history of collaboration or confrontation of various social groups: civil servants, doctors, trade unionists, management, members of social institutions, and politicians. Oral history, by virtue of its systematic character,

Establishing a College Archives: Possibilities and Priorities

Because the job of establishing a college archives often falls to librarians or historians who have had little formal training in archival work, some guidelines are useful. The author discusses how an archives is usually created, ways of publicizing the archivist's activity, and the role and composition of a faculty-staff committee. The second half of the article highlights services the archivist can offer to students, faculty, and administration, including creation of subject and biographical files, collection of faculty and institutional publications, development of an iconographic file, collection and use of memorabilia, and establishment of an oral history program.

Guide to the Oral History Program, Part II

Previous articleNext article No AccessGuide to the Oral History Program, Part IIPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Archives of American Art Journal Volume 14, Number 31974 Sponsored by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/aaa.14.3.1556946 Views: 6Total views on this site Copyright 1974 Archives of Amer. ArtPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

A Guide to the Archives of American Art Oral History Program

Previous articleNext article No AccessA Guide to the Archives of American Art Oral History ProgramGarnett McCoyGarnett McCoy Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Archives of American Art Journal Volume 11, Number 1/41971A Guide to the Archives of American Art Oral History Program Sponsored by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/aaa.11.1_4.1557133 Views: 8Total views on this site Copyright 1971 Archives of American ArtPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.