Oral History Project Research Articles

Cambodian American Listening as Memory Work

Cambodian American Listening as Memory Work

Lee Shai Weissbach (1947–2022)

Lee Shai Weissbach (1947–2022) Janice W. Fernheimer (bio) Lee Shai Weissbach, professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisville, passed away on September 29, 2022. Born in Haifa to an Egyptian-born father and a Virginian-born mother, he moved to Cincinnati at the age of five. After graduating from the University of Cincinnati with high honors (1969), he went on to pursue a PhD in history at Harvard. His dissertation formed the basis for his first book, Child Labor Reform in Nineteenth-Century France: Assuring the Future Harvest (Louisiana State University Press, 1989). Lee Shai joined the faculty of the University of Louisville in 1978 and spent his entire scholarly career there until his retirement in 2015. I had the honor and pleasure of meeting him in person when he agreed to be interviewed for the recently launched Jewish Kentucky Oral History Project. I was a little nervous to meet the scholar whom I had informally referred as the "father" of Jewish Kentucky studies, but his warmth and kindness immediately put me at ease. What touched me most at the time (as a new and first-time mom) was learning how his scholarly trajectory had shifted to fit the needs of his growing family. With two young children at home, he was unable to continue his travels to France, so he shifted his studies to Jewish life in the United States, with particular interest in his local surroundings; the research that grew out of this shift transformed the way we think about and tell the story of American Jews and Judaism.1 Lee Shai had profound impact on the way American Jewish history is both told and analyzed. The Synagogues of Kentucky: History and Architecture (University Press of Kentucky, 1995) and the field-transforming Jewish Life in Small Town America (Yale University Press, 2005) have become foundational texts for thinking about American Jews and their institutions beyond the major industrial cities of the Northeast and Midwest. He authored more than a dozen scholarly articles that engaged Jewish life in both France and the United States, often focusing on Jews in southern and non-urban (and thus under-studied) settings. Before his retirement, he published A Jewish Life on Three Continents (Stanford [End Page 409] University Press, 2013). In this deeply personal scholarly work, Lee Shai introduced, translated, and annotated his own grandfather's memoir. A transnational story of migration, global politics, and the upheavals of change in Jewish life at the turn of the century, the project reflected both his familial roots and his historical interests. During his long career at the University of Louisville, Lee Shai was a productive scholar and an active university citizen. He served as department chair twice, spearheaded the creation of an endowed chair in Judaic studies, and was associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 2000–2003. Long-time friend and UofL colleague Tracy K'Meyer recalled Lee Shai to be "a warm, generous, and funny colleague, mentor, and friend. I will remember him most fondly for his pun-filled grammar tip sheet for students, which I still use in class; the truly bad jokes he shared at the department's annual winter potluck lunch; and his deep commitment to service to the profession, university, and community." Ranen Omer-Sherman, the scholar recruited to fill the endowed position in Judaic studies that Lee Shai created, recalls that his colleague enjoyed a "stellar reputation for his energy and enthusiasm for the historical profession, his eagerness to engage with colleagues no matter what their specialization, and his ability to make connections and forge intellectual ties across the boundaries of field and discipline. Indeed, for anyone active in the field of Jewish studies, he represents a truly exemplary model—even though that specialization is only a part of his accomplishments over a truly tireless and prolific career." Perhaps what most people will remember about Lee Shai is his mentschlichkeit. Long-time UofL colleague and professor of political science Jasmine Farrier praised Lee Shai for his willingness to mentor and collaborate across a wide variety of fields, as well as for his generosity with his time, advice, and good humor. Farrier also...

Studying Industrial Oral History during the Pandemic – Ethical and Methodological Questions

This article discusses an oral history project that examines homer production at the Högfors Ironworks in Karkkila. This was a cooperative project of the University of Helsinki, the Finnish Labour Archives and the Finnish Foundry Museum in Karkkila. A “homer” (firabeli in Finnish) is an object made for one’s own benefit by a worker using his or her factory’s equipment and materials. The article focuses on ethical and methodological issues affecting the study of industrial oral history during the COVID-19 pandemic. What kind of practical and ethical challenges were faced, how could they be solved and how did they affect a project? These issues are reflected in relation to recent academic discussions on conducting oral history interviews during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic affected the process in numerous ways. The conducting of interviews required a unique solution based on the local services of Karkkila. The risks for interviewers and interviewees were minimized. However, the downside was that a video interview during the long pandemic period might have been a psychologically stressing experience for some interviewees. The interviewees’ ideas about homer practices were similar to those of the previous oral history collections. The major distinction between the Karkkila collection and the previous collections lies in the foundry industry itself.

“We Need to Be Human”: Using Oral Histories of Latino/a Staff and Faculty to Examine Neoliberalism in the Age of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on Latinos/as, including Latino/a staff and faculty in higher education. Latino/a staff and faculty occupy important roles at their respective institutions yet often are not recognized for their labor and equity contributions. This article draws from a national rapid-response COVID-19 oral history project titled Voces of a Pandemic to explore oral histories of nine Latino/a staff and faculty across diverse roles and institutional types. The author applies a social science approach to contextualize the interviewees’ experiences using a framework that employs a critique of neoliberalism to explore how the pandemic undermined the importance of their labor. The analysis suggests that a neoliberal higher education system deprioritizes equity and fails to value Latino/a labor contributions in spite of increased responsibilities and personal challenges. The findings highlight how a crisis in public health can perpetuate work-related inequities, devalue work, and undermine diversity and equity initiatives in higher education. The author urges university and department leaders to reevaluate institutional culture, workplace policies, and job promotion and tenure considerations to retain Latino/a staff and faculty.

Oral history in the focus of social success formation of students

The authors consider the method of oral history including its gender aspect in the context of the potential to form the social success of modern education applicant and note its systematic use regardless of the levels and types of educational institutions and the status of higher education institutions. The scholars focus on the essence and content of the oral history method based on the analysis of interpretations of the definition «oral history» in scientific research of foreign and domestic scientists; the definition of oral history as a pedagogical method of recording by an applicant for education by means of modern technical means unique testimonies of another person on a certain topic or problem; the formation of the Ukrainian school of oral history research from information and training sessions to the Ukrainian Association of Oral History, specialized cells, preparation of special courses, cooperation between scholars and public organizations, active involvement of students and recognition of the public benefits of oral history projects by promoting participation in the competition among educational institutions in Ukraine. The authors reveal the peculiarities of implementing the method of oral history (biographical (narrative), problem (focused) in the practice of forming the social success of young students, volunteer work in public organizations; they introduce the presentation approaches to the results of oral history research: creation of radio broadcasts, exhibitions, fragments of a theatrical performance, Internet pages for museum expositions. The article proves the interrelation of social and educational function of oral history method, which helps to realize the moral and moral values of previous generations, recreate «official» historical events from the point of view of a young man or woman, get historical knowledge about the processes of the past, which is useful for methodical organization of educational process in the context of modernization of education, formation of necessary competencies and skills of education applicants in conditions of Eurointegration development of Ukraine.

From Truth Commission to Truth Project: The Evolution of Mississippi’s Incomplete Truth Commission, 2005–2010

ABSTRACT∞ Just months after the Mississippi Truth Commission’s public launch in 2009, organizers abandoned the Commission despite sufficient funding and growing public support, deciding instead to pursue a statewide oral history project. This study explores why, offering insight into an understudied phenomenon: incomplete truth commissions. Drawing on ethnographic observations, archival documents and interviews with local practitioners, this study highlights several reasons that local organizers changed course. In addition to a shifting cultural context, the Mississippi Truth Commission faced several cognitive challenges. First, local audiences struggled to comprehend the structure and scope of the truth commission model, leading to ‘Transitional Justice 101,’ a perpetual, and ultimately unsuccessful, public education program. Second, local organizers’ visit to South Africa in 2009 cast doubt on the efficacy of truth commissions and caused them to question the metaphoric logic that had constructed Mississippi’s history of racial violence as analogous to South Africa’s, providing implicit justification for the Commission until that point. Thus, alongside economic and political resources, this research suggests that cognitive resources are a critical, and often overlooked, component of truth commissions’ infrastructure. Findings also indicate that incomplete truth commissions can be leveraged to support alternative truth-seeking processes that may be more advantageous in stable democracies.

Using an IIIF as trunk approach to digital collections delivery: Case study of the Rising from the Ashes Oral History Project

Rising from the Ashes: The Chimney Tops 2 Wildfires Oral History Project is a project led by the University of Tennessee Libraries in collaboration with the City of Gatlinburg and the Anna Porter Public Library. The community-based oral history project documents the immediate and ongoing impacts of the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 wildfires, one of the largest natural disasters in Tennessee history, by recording interviews with individuals who experienced the wildfires or their aftermath. The interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish and comprise a mix of both video and audio-only recordings. While transitioning to a new repository system, the team decided to develop a stand-alone solution leveraging the IIIF presentation version 3 application programming interface for serving the oral histories. This paper describes the project and the team’s experience implementing the project to this new specification.

Toward Metaliteracy and Transliteracy in the History Classroom: A Case Study Among Underserved Students

ABSTRACT In the last twenty years, scholars have reimagined information literacy to better address an overly saturated world of information and the growing participatory culture of Web 2.0. Outside of library and information science (LIS), researchers have promoted transliteracy—the intersection between information, visual, digital, and other literacies—to help students find and assess information. Within the LIS discipline, metaliteracy has provided a foundation to rethink information literacy frameworks, redefining students as creators who produce and share information. Relatively few studies exist, however, on how to leverage literacies in support of student digital scholarship projects. Likewise, digital humanities professors promote metaliteracy in the classroom, yet fewer scholars create digital humanities projects or write case studies about them outside of research institutions, prestigious private colleges, and larger, well-established public history programs. This case study examines a class project for a small undergraduate Introduction to Public History course at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi (TAMU–CC), a regional university with a comparatively large population of historically underserved students. Working with one archivist, two librarians, and the professor, students established a digital home for the ongoing South Texas Stories oral history project. Through this project, students learned and practiced various aspects of primary source literacy, information literacy, visual literacy, and digital literacy. The authors argue that such digital projects promote both metaliteracy and transliteracy, offering students a holistic learning experience during which they can practice their skills and that these types of projects are feasible at all kinds of institutions, even those with largely historically underserved populations.

Review: Why Marianne Faithfull Matters, by Tanya Pearson

Review: <i>Why Marianne Faithfull Matters</i>, by Tanya Pearson

Piety and Privilege: Catholic Secondary Schooling in Ireland and the Theocratic State, 1922–1967 by Tom O’Donoghue and Judith Harford

Reviewed by: Piety and Privilege: Catholic Secondary Schooling in Ireland and the Theocratic State, 1922–1967 by Tom O’Donoghue and Judith Harford Brian Fleming (bio) Piety and Privilege: Catholic Secondary Schooling in Ireland and the Theocratic State, 1922–1967, Tom O’Donoghue and Judith Harford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 256 pages. A major feature of Irish education in the last two centuries has been the dominant position of the churches, particularly the Catholic Church. Histories dealing with and explaining developments during the period invariably refer to this phenomenon and its impact. In their recent book, O’Donoghue and Harford make the point that no single work to date has addressed in detail how that dominance developed and was maintained by the Catholic Church and used, as they see it, to promote piety and privilege in Ireland in the period between the establishment of the independent Irish state in 1922 and 1967. So, that’s what they set out to do. Rather than adopting a hypothesis, they took the view that a more descriptive approach was needed. Both authors have written extensively on a range of topics including aspects of the history of Irish education. They also have access to an oral history project they undertook some years ago to capture people’s experiences of attending school in Ireland in the middle of the last century. In addition, they have extensive knowledge of the history of other education systems which allowed them to contrast the approach of the Catholic Church in Ireland with that which unfolded in other jurisdictions. In summary, they were ideally placed to undertake this project. In order to explain the context of Irish education when Irish Independence was secured in 1922, the authors present a useful summary of the main events that occurred during the previous hundred years. In particular, two policy developments had a fairly transformative effect on Irish education during that period. A watershed development occurred in 1831 when the British government decided to fund elementary (primary) education in Ireland. The mechanism used was to establish a Board of Commissioners to oversee the system and allocate resources. This was a particular achievement as the government did not introduce state funding for primary education in Britain for a further forty years. Whilst some scholars suggest that the government took this step in an effort to ‘civilize’ the unruly Irish, the main reason was a campaign for reform over the previous decades which came to fruition under Bishop James Doyle. It was a hard-won concession and the notion that E. G. Stanley, the British government’s chief secretary in Ireland, ‘championed’ the reform is misplaced. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the Catholic [End Page 320] hierarchy secured a further concession in relation to secondary (then known as intermediate) education when the Intermediate Education Act (1878) was passed. Under its terms, an examination board was established which disbursed funds to schools based on the success rates of students in the public examinations thus circumventing the politically sensitive controversy that direct state subvention to denominational schools would have engendered. So, at both primary and secondary level a system was now in place whereby the church authorities controlled educational provision whilst at the same time receiving some financial aid from the state. That’s what prevailed when the independent Irish state came into being. In 1922, the vast majority of the leading politicians in the newly independent Ireland were quite happy with the status quo in relation to education. The close association that had developed in the previous five decades or so between the Church and the independence movement meant that there was no significant anti-clerical feeling in Ireland similar to that which had arisen in other countries. Thus, the Church was allowed to retain ownership of the schools, control appointments of teachers and principals, and decide on curriculum by and large. The situation was copper-fastened in the constitution adopted in 1937, which describes the education system as state aided as distinct from provided. This suited successive governments as they had the advantage of an education system provided at far less than cost. Most of those working in the schools were doing...

The roots of uprooting: migrant oral history and internationalist solidarity

ABSTRACT This article explores a transnational oral history project on migrant justice which I developed in collaboration with refugee organizers in Greece and students in my course ‘Borders and Migration’ at the University of Utah. In the project, US-based and Greece-based im/migrant communities exchange oral histories with each other on their struggles and experiences. I argue that this exchange shed light on avenues for building internationalist solidarity among migrant justice movements worldwide. The project made visible some common ‘roots of uprooting,’ namely the ways in which structures of capitalism and imperialism have uprooted disparate peoples from their homelands. I thus argue that freedom of movement and freedom from uprooting emerge as twin struggles in these oral histories. I then explore the ways that both sides of the exchange underscored that community need not be defined by citizenship papers or lack thereof, by (militarized) national borders, or by people’s particular ethnic identity. Rather, participants spoke to each other of steadfastly building strong, meaningful communities based on mutual aid despite their presence being deemed illegal or otherwise illegitimate. These included a direct-action squat by refugees of a vacant hotel in Athens as well as other forms of community building by DACAmented youth on the project’s US side. I ultimately argue that these acts help light the way to a world not based on profit and its tendency to displace people, but rather based on sharing resources in solidarity. The latter roots people together instead of uprooting them from homes and from one another.

LGBTQ Community Archives in Small Urban Centers: Reflections on Community and University Partnerships to Build Awareness of the Lehigh Valley’s Rich LGBTQ History from AIDS Activism to Anti-Discrimination Legislation

Too frequently regional LGBTQ history outside of major metropolises is not a major focus either in university curriculum or for financially strapped local non-profit organizations as they provide essential direct services to our communities. Even as the late twentieth and early twenty-first century have ushered in a new focus on local archival projects, regional organizations often struggle to find funding for local historical projects while universities provide LGBTQ studies courses that center activism in NYC, Los Angeles, or San Francsico, marches in Washington, D.C., and the value of subcultural spaces on the coasts. As scholars have argued in the past decade, literary critics and historians need to focus more attention on LGBTQ activism, cultural production, and community formations outside of major urban centers. For university faculty, staff, and archivists, we have the opportunity to address this need by partnering with regional LGBTQ organizations, using our resources to help build strong local archives, and working with community members to shape narratives about LGBTQ history that engage with national movements while also addressing the nuances of activist work in various cultural contexts. This article addresses how community center leaders, archivists, faculty, and students in Allentown, PA have collaborated to meet these challenges by discussing three impactful archival projects: F.A.C.T. (Fighting AIDS Continuously Together) public history courses, an exhibit titled “Pride Guides and the Early Years of Lehigh Valley Pride Festivals,” and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. As we provide details about these projects, we trace the value of centering regional AIDS activism, pride celebrations, and struggles for anti-discrimination legislation for our regional LGBTQ community and our students. We argue that courses, exhibits, and oral history collection not only produce regional connectivity to national political projects and strategies, but also build stronger understanding of the import of local activism for promoting equity at the civic and state level. Beyond understanding the historical trajectory of regional activism, archival work and exhibitions bring diverse young people, elders, and those in the middle of life together who may not have met otherwise to reflect on our history and to imagine our future. The process of incorporating students, organizational leaders, and archivists in shared historical projects and narratives formation builds new networks for meeting urgent present-day needs.

On (Not) “Humanizing” Muslims: Challenge and Opportunity in an Oral History Project with American Muslims

ABSTRACT This article focuses on an award-winning oral history project with American Muslims in a small Midwestern city. It addresses the challenge and opportunity of oral history at a time of Islamophobic rhetoric and threats to Muslims’ status as Americans. The article first examines critiques of the premise that Muslims must be “humanized.” In turn, it draws on the philosopher Jill Stauffer’s work, Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of Not Being Heard, to argue that oral history offers a form of “reparative” hearing. In this way, oral history can aid in transforming a sense of “ethical loneliness” in those who are treated unjustly and dehumanized, and whose experience is not heard. The article explores these themes through the Muslims in Muncie oral history and documentary film project carried out by eleven students at Ball State University in 2018. The article argues that a commitment to trust, sustained conversational relationships, and careful framing of questions fostered a transformative experience for both narrators and interviewers in response to a problematic humanizing agenda. The project’s contribution to ethical repair continues, moreover, through a publicly accessible digital archive that adds to the handful of oral histories with American Muslims. The twenty-two interviews and hour-long film also enrich Middletown Studies, a field dating to the 1920s research of Robert and Helen Lynd on Muncie, Indiana, as a “representative” American city.

Is Oral History White? The Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore, an Oral History Project from 1976, and Best Practices Today

ABSTRACT What can a focus on a past oral history project on the Civil Rights Movement teach us about best practices and an antiracism approach today? This article grew out of the 2020 Oral History Association virtual meeting panel, “Is Oral History White? Documenting Race in Three Baltimore Oral History Projects,” and examines that question by investigating the McKeldin-Jackson Project, an oral history of the Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore produced by the Maryland Historical Society in 1976. The article has a forward-looking focus on lessons that we might glean as oral historians today, lessons that apply not only to historical societies or to oral histories of the Civil Rights Movement, but also to museums, archives, and public history projects of all kinds. The paper expands on the question of whether oral history is white by interrogating what whiteness means for the field of oral history. Through this lens, three themes from the McKeldin-Jackson Project emerged: white interviewer/Black narrator dynamics; the biographical framing of two public figures (Theodore McKeldin and Lillie May Jackson), and why that was problematic; and what I call the project’s invisible architecture—the white foundations, including the historical society itself, that made the project possible. Finally, I offer some possible solutions for both individuals and institutions to work toward in building antiracism practices in oral history.

Making Place and Community: Contrasting Lesbian and Gay, Feminist and Queer Oral History Projects in Brighton and Leeds

ABSTRACT LGBTQ communities across Britain have created dozens of local history projects, especially in recent years. Springing from distinctive local towns and cities, these oral history projects have mostly, since 2000, been publicly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This article compares the aims, approaches, and structures of queer community history-making over the past thirty years in two English cities, the south coast seaside resort of Brighton, nationally known as a hub of gay life, and the northern postindustrial city of Leeds. It will discuss the formation and objectives of seven LGBT, feminist, and queer oral history projects in these cities, their funding and increasing professionalisation, their local impact, and, finally, the issues raised by the shift in conceptualization from “lesbian and gay” to “queer.” How the projects were formulated and how this has changed over time demonstrates the distinct ways in which community oral history-making has reflected differences in LGBTQ and queer place identity.

U.S. demography in transition

Demography, the social science of population studies, has changed dramatically over the past forty years, responding to a dual crisis of funding and moral legitimacy that hit the field in the mid-1970s. This article uses structural topic modeling in conjunction with the Oral History Project of the Population Association of America (PAA) to examine how demography survived the crisis. It finds that demographers turned to a new source of funding, the National Institutes of Health, shifted their research focus from overseas population growth to domestic socioeconomic inequality, and transformed the PAA from an interest group for people concerned about population problems to a professional association for academic demographers. These three shifts turned demography into the field it is today.

Author Response

Author Response

Tarihyazımı, Hafıza, Aidiyet: Sözlü Tarih Yöntemi ve Türkiye’de Kullanımı Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme

Tarih disiplinin sınırlarını aşarak farklı sosyal ve beşerî bilim dalları tarafından da kullanılan sözlü tarih, yirminci yüzyılın en popüler veri toplama metotlarından biri olarak karşımıza çıkar. Sözlü tarihin özellikle 1970’lerden itibaren giderek yaygınlaşmasının sebebi yakın tarihi inceleyen araştırmacılara sunduğu potansiyellerle ilintilidir. Sözlü tarih henüz otobiyografilerini yazmamış liderlerin, yerel, ulusal ve uluslararası düzlemde karar verme merciinde bulunan seçilmiş ve atanmış bürokratların belgelenmemiş deneyimlerine erişim sağlayabilmeyi olanaklı kıldığı gibi işçiler, kadınlar, etnik azınlıklar, marjinal ve dezavantajlı grupların tarih anlatısında yer almasını mümkün kılmaktadır. Sözlü tarih 1970’lerden itibaren hem yaygınlaşmış hem de sıkça eleştirilmiştir. 1980’lerin sonundan itibaren gerek bu eleştiriler ve gerekse sosyal ve beşerî bilimlerdeki teorik tartışmalar neticesinde, sözlü tarih içinde farklı eğilim ve yorumlama biçimlerini barındıran ve birçok disiplinden beslenen yöntem olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Avrupa ve Kuzey Amerika’da 1960’ların sonunda ivme kazanmaya başlayan sözlü tarih Türkiye’de akademik literatüre eklemlenmesi 1990’ların başına rastlar. 1990’lardan bugüne kadar Türkiye’de sözlü tarihin gelişimine bakıldığında sözlü tarih çalışmalarının geçmişin daha kapsayıcı bir şekilde yazılmasını mümkün kılmak için farklı tarihsel zemin, olay ve aktörlere odaklandığını söylemek mümkündür. Fakat gerek Batı gerekse Batı dışı coğrafyalarda yapılan sözlü tarih çalışmaları ile kıyaslandığında, Türkiye’de sözlü tarihe dayanan akademik çalışmaların ve sözlü tarih projelerinin hem sayısal anlamda çok az hem de sözlü tarihin potansiyelini yansıtacak kadar konu ve yaklaşım çeşitliliğine sahip olmadığı gözlemlenir. Dolayısıyla, bu çalışma, bu konuda Türkiye içinde ve dışında üretilen literatürü eleştirel bir şekilde okuyarak, sözlü tarih yönteminin ne olduğunu, neden ortaya çıktığını, sözlü tarih çalışmalarının yıllar içinde nasıl ve neden dönüştüğünü ve son olarak sözlü tarih yönteminin günümüz Türkiye’sinin yakın tarih yazımında kullanımını inceleyecektir.

Research ethics to consider when collecting oral histories in wilderness areas such as the Kruger National Park

In the last half century, oral history has emerged as a historical approach that is being considered by archivists involved with the collection and accessibility of archival collections for researchers and interested members of the public. The approach to ethics by oral historians has emerged from two major fears: the fear of failing as researchers and the fear of failing the narrators and doing harm. Archivists also need to be cognisant of these fears when collecting oral history. Confronting these fears makes it possible to understand the complex questions behind oral historians’ and archivists’ preoccupations and sheds light on how oral history has evolved and expanded as a field. The research objectives of this article are to determine the three principles identified from the Belmont Report that relate and should be applied to the collection of oral histories by archivists and historians from communities and individuals residing and working in and alongside the Kruger National Park. The theoretical framework for this article is the critical race theory to address historical accounts from communities and individuals sidelined by the mainstream media in South Africa. For the purposes of this article, the study was conducted with the Makuleka and Tsonga communities to determine what ethical implications need to be respected when conducting oral history projects with communities.Contribution: This article will contribute to ethics concerning social sciences and specifically the collection of oral history.

Bass and Voice: Sheila Jordan Discusses Race, Class, and the Emergence of Her Concept

Sheila Jordan (b. 1928) is a vocalist and composer who emerged in the bebop period, having studied with Lennie Tristano. Her early champion was George Russell, who produced her earliest recordings, including “You Are My Sunshine,” which appeared on George Russell's album The Outer View.1Portrait of Sheila was her definitive debut,2 but she was not content to be confined to traditional tropes as a jazz vocalist. Always seeking new ways of expressing herself, she followed the concept of bass and voice, first developed with Steve Swallow in the 1950s and later more fully explored and concentrated in duo form with Harvie Swartz and Cameron Brown.For years, Jordan split her time between supporting her family as a single mother and playing in groups led by other musicians such as Steve Kuhn, Don Heckman, Lee Konitz, and Roswell Rudd. Then, teaming up with Swartz, Jordan orchestrated a series of groundbreaking recordings that exhibited her bass and voice concept including Old Time Feeling, The Crossing, and numerous others.3 She taught at City College of New York from 1978 until retiring in 2005.This text comes from a phone interview I conducted with Jordan on February 18, 2021. Our discussion occurred as part of the Free Jazz Oral History Project that I founded in 2016, which has compiled nearly one hundred interviews in the last five years. I have only made light edits to the transcript for the sake of clarity.