Oral
history refers to a type of history gained from verbal, i.e., oral, interviews.
In the history profession, usually these are done in the course of research in
the topic. Historians have to judge the veracity and context of the
interviewee’s remarks, and learn to ask good questions to elicit good remarks.
If the interviewee is uninformed, the interview is usually less informative.
Your job in these assignments is to write a summary of the interview that you
conduct with someone, and, by submitting the questions asked, show that you
have done your best to use questions that are informed by course material.
You should not submit a “transcript” of the interview, but rather an analytical
summary of the interview. The description of what that means is informed by
a close reading of the information below.
The best
approach is to do this assignment in stages.
1)
Decide
who among your family or associates would be a good interviewee. Usually a
grandparent or parent is a good choice, but you may have a strong reason for
choosing someone else. You will want to choose someone who can help you
understand a selected period of this course, or the changes occurring
throughout the course. It is valuable if that person has a sharp memory. Or you
may want to understand some aspect of the past more critically by interviewing
someone you know who was transformed by a particular moment in history. It is
not necessary that the interviewee have a link to “great historical moments.”
Deciding whom to interview is the first hurdle. You must submit your
interviewee and why you are interviewing to me in advance, with a brief
explanation for why you want to interview them.
2)
Once
you get approval from me to continue, you will want to get some preliminary
information from the interviewee to guide your interview. In many cases you will know them very well,
but in other cases, you might not know as much as you think you do about their
lives. Examples: Where did they grow up, where did they work, where did they
live, etc. What political affiliation do they hold? What religious affiliation,
and is that religious affiliation critical to their history or not? In other
words, gather enough material so that you can start to focus on the material in
the course readings that might help you frame questions. In other words, this
basic information should be gathered before the formal interview. The idea is
that you have enough information to focus your questions well.
3)
Whatever
basic information you find should be referenced to the course material. If your parents or grandparents are the
interviewees and they moved to the suburbs during the 1960s, or have strong
memories of the racial conflicts of that era, you might want to gather key
points of information from the course material on these issues. If your mother
worked as clerical worker in the 1970s, for example, you might glance try to
find from the material from the course that about women’s jobs might be relevant
to helping you to ask good questions. You might even decide to have the
interviewee glance through the chronologies or the pictures of the text to jog
their memory about specific issues. After consulting with me, you might find
that there are some valuable sources of information that you need to conduct.
For example, if the person went to Woodstock in 1969 you might have to conduct
a bit of extra research to ask good questions and confirm the veracity of the
person’s memories (or to challenge their memories). You may have to conduct
additional research in the library (I will not accept internet sources without
prior approval, unless they are posted on my website) and you can get
suggestions from me for books/articles or other resources for your research.
4)
Write
a series of open-ended questions to ask. Open-ended questions are those that
can’t be answered with a yes or no. They often begin with why or how. The
questions should be geared to getting to the root of historical forces that
have affected their lives. Here are some examples:
What were your motivations for joining the army?
Why did you move to the Chicago suburbs? What was the
context? How did that change your life?
What kind of jobs were available to you as a young black
woman in 1970?
Why
did you vote for Ronald Reagan? What issues of the campaign were most important
to you and why?
Why
were you so dramatically affected by the death of John Lennon?
These
types of questions allow the interview to be partly directed by you, but open
to directions that aren’t necessarily driven by facts.
Obviously the questions for each
interview will vary depending on the experiences and background of the person.
Sometimes we grow up with assumptions about people in our family. We assume
certain things about why they did certain things and how they lived and
thought. This interview should not take anything for granted. You should devise questions that take into
account what you already know about the interviewee’s perspectives, but strive
to ask questions that you never have before. Always draw questions that allow
you to draw comparisons between that person and the perspectives of people
outside their class, race, and gender, religious or other category. How was the
person’s life different because they belonged in one category and not another?
Did the horizons for that individual change because of historical changes that
affected their group?
I encourage
you to review these questions with me before engaging in the interview.
After the initial interview, excellent
interviews often require follow-up after you review the material. Do the
comments require further research on your part of specific events or
developments discussed? Memory is sometimes revived when the interviewer
supplies certain references and information, allowing the interviewee to recall
more of their own perspectives.
Here is an example: You learn in the
interview that your parent, who you thought was a Democrat, voted for Ronald
Reagan in 1980. You ask a few questions about this in the interview, but still
don’t understand the vote. Then, later you look up the Reagan election in
course readings, and you find that a number of white working-class Democrats
voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980. You find that this was a electoral shift that
changed politics in the U.S. for the next generation (your life). You read what
the textbook gives as an explanation for this shift, and decide to test out the
textbook’s arguments on your parent. In re-visiting the topic in a follow-up
interview, you find out a lot more information about the particular views that
your parents held. Now you understand how some of the values and perspectives
you grew up with were shaped by this vital historical shift and the politics of
the era. You are then able to compare and contrast—to analyze—your parent’s situation with more general
historical trends (something vital for the historical biography). The
information that you mention triggers some important reminiscences by your father,
and this allows you to discuss other points of history that affected his life
and perspectives.
You might
also find that the interviewee’s recollections also differ from the course
materials or materials you have researched. You need to explain why. Please
note this when you find this, and provide an explanation.
Recording
the interviewee is very highly recommended. It is always possible that you will
miss an important point if you take notes. It is also possible that you will
miss an important detail that you will notice if you record the material.
Finally, it will be nice to have a document of your relatives’ reflections that
you can keep for posterity.
You should
write a 6-7 page summary of the interview. Summarize the person’s life and then
elaborate on the issues that were raised in the interview. The first paragraph
of the paper should indicate the analysis of the interview. It should show us
that you have analyzed the historical forces that shaped this persons life. The
rest of the paper should draw a chronological/narrative/analytical perspective
elaborating on the contents of the first paragraph of the paper.
Here is an
example from an actual paper:
In interviewing my mother, I found
that several key historical forces affected her life. My mother’s life was
shaped by the limitations placed on women in the era before women’s liberation
movement brought more choices to women. It was also shaped the racial turmoil
of the 1960s, as her parents moved from the city of Chicago in the aftermath of
the racial conflicts of the 1960s. . I learned in this interview why my family
made certain choices, and how they are connected to larger historical trends. I
was astonished by some of the information that I gained in interview. I have
found out a number of important facts that I never knew happened, as will be
indicated in the summary below.
Use quotations from the person whenever
they are necessary to bring their perspective directly into view. Other points
may be summarized. BE VERY CLEAR ABOUT WHO IS BEING QUOTED, WHETHER THE
CONCLUSIONS ARE YOUR OWN OR THAT OF THE INTERVIEWEE. It is essential that you
differentiate your analysis and voice from that of your
interviewee.
Along with the 6-7 page summary, you
are required to turn in the questions that you asked the interviewee. (If you
do 2 interviews as recommended, please turn in both sets of questions). These questions will partly govern the grade
you get. If I can see by the questions that you understood course material and
tried to relate relevant course material to the person you are interviewing,
that will be good for your grade. The body of the interview summary should not
relate factual information about the era that can be easily obtained in any
book. It should instead relate the person’s response and role in the era. You
should cite course material in endnotes whenever you reference it. In other
words, if you suggest that you interviewee, who is a woman who grew up in the
1960s and became a feminist in the 1970s, had perspectives that defined her as
a cultural feminist, you should cite
the readings that allowed you to draw this conclusion. You should check your spelling, use good
grammar, topic sentences, etc.