Library Guides: Digital Scholarship Research Guide: Oral Histories

What is Oral History?

Oral History documents the past through present-day interviews. The person you interview may have witnessed a historic event, participated in a historically significant movement, or have first-hand knowledge of a particular subject or topic. Some oral histories help uncover forgotten or under-studied chapters of history; some provide a first-person voice for an important subject; others still help revise our understanding of what happened in the past. Portions of oral history interviews are regularly featured in scholarly publications and museum exhibits or heard in podcasts or documentary productions.

Quick Tips

Select a theme, subject or topic to explore
Structure the oral history interview as a conversation between two (rarely more) people
Aspire to more than just a question-answer response (aspire to shedding light on matters of significance)
Establish a value of equality between interviewer and respondent (unseat yourself from a position of authority)

Explore Oral History Projects

Veterans History Project
From the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress
Bracero History Archive
A joint project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Brown University, and The Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Civil Rights History Project
From the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina
9/11 Oral History Project
From the Columbia Center for Oral History Research.

The History of Oral History

History Matters: Making Sense of Oral History
Linda Shopes provides a brief but thorough account of how oral history has developed since the 1930s.
Oral History in the Digital Age
A leading voice in oral history for the last four decades, historian Michael Frisch’s lecture delivered at American University as a part of their Humanities Truck series provides a thoughtful examination of how historical trends and the digital revolution have affected the filed of oral history.