Oral history

Oral history is an account of something passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. Oral history is considered by some historians to be an unreliable source for the study of history. However, other historians consider it to be a valid means for preserving and transmitting history. Experience within literate cultures indicates that each time anyone reconstructs a memory, there are changes in the memory, but the core of the story is usually retained. Over time, however, minor changes can accumulate until the story becomes unrecognizable.

A person within a literate culture thus has presuppositions that may falsely affect his judgment of the validity of oral history within preliterate cultures. In these cultures children are usually selected and specially trained for the role of historian, and develop extraordinary memory skills known as eidetic or photographic memory.

Usage

Before the development of written language in a given society, oral history is the primary means of conveying information from one generation to the next. The most common form of this transmission is through storytelling and the recitation of epic poetry, with the stories and poems collectively known as the oral tradition of a people. The combination of this oral tradition with morals and rituals passed down by word of mouth is known as the folklore of a society. Although not as prevalent now as in the past, oral history is still very much alive among many North American native groups.

The information passed on has occasionally shown a surprising accuracy over long periods of time. For example, the Iliad, an epic poem of Homer describing the conquest of Troy, was passed down as oral history from perhaps the 8th century BC, until being recorded in writing by Pisistratos. Nonetheless, factual elements of the Iliad were at least partially validated by the discovery of ruins discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870, thought to be those of the city described in the poem.

A famous example of oral history comes from the works of several authors who have, over the span of many hundreds of years, collected folklore which was ultimately put together in a collection of books known as the Old Testament. The New Testament Gospels were created by several different original authors whose slightly differing versions of many biblical events were combined. The Bible was therefore nearly entirely created using oral history.

Contemporary oral history involves recording or transcribing eyewitness accounts of historical events. Some anthropologists started collecting recordings (at first especially of American Indian folklore) on phonograph cylinders in the late 19th century. In the 1930s the United States Library of Congress started an oral history program to record traditional folk music, and accounts by surviving witnesses of the American Civil War, Slavery, and other major historical events, onto acetate discs. With the development of audio tape recordings the task of oral historians became easier.

Anthropologists who collect oral history avoid asking leading questions, for many people will tend to say what they think the interviewer wants them to say.

Oral historians attempt to record the memories of many different people when researching a given event. Since any given individual may misremember events or distort their account for personal reasons, the historical documentation is considered to reside in the points of agreement of many different sources, rather than the account of any one person.

Oral history is now often used when historians investigate history from below.

Modern Usage

It is important to note that two distinct uses of the term Oral history exist. It has become a common distinction, as shown in some of the works cited here, that to use the term Oral history refers to the modern method of historical documentation, using interviews with living survivors of the time being investigated. The separate term Oral tradition is used to imply the information has been passed down through generations. These have become two important but uniquely separate fields of historical data collection.

Notable people

Storytellers

*Thomas King
*Harry Robinson
*Studs Terkel

Theorists

*Milman Parry
*Albert Lord
*Eric A. Havelock
*Marshall McLuhan
*Walter J. Ong
*Wendy Wickwire

Polybiography

Polybiography is similar to an oral history where an editor records and transcribes the various stories into a cohesive narrative. However, the oral history will have a slant due to the selection of participants and how they are edited. The polybiography will avoid a bias or slant from an editor because the participants are self-selected. The stories are in the unedited words of the individuals who made the history. The primary problem anticipated are the differences in individuals' writing styles, and a possibly confused organization.

References

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External links

* http://www.stvincent.edu/napp11 Appalachian Studies (NORTHERN)Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA. Richard Wissolik, Ph.D., Director.
* http://www.stvincent.edu/napp17 Appalachian Studies (NORTHERN) World War II Oral Histories. They Say There Was A War. European and Pacific Theatres. Richard Wissolik, Ph.D., Director.
* http://www.stvincent.edu/napp14 Appalachian Studies (NORTHERN) Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA Richard Wissolik, Ph.D., Director. World War II Oral Histories. The Long Road: From Oran to Pilsen. European Theatre.
* American Life Histories WPA Writers' Project 1936â€"1940 at Library of Congress (US)
* Center for Studies in Oral Tradition The center's mission is to facilitate communication across disciplinary boundaries by creating linkages among specialists in different fields. Through our various activities we try to foster conversations and exchanges about oral tradition that would not otherwise take place.
* My Recollection Self-selected memories (non-academics)
* Oral History Archives of World War II â€" Rutgers University
* Oral History Association (US)
* Oral History Association of Australia
* Oral History Directory of Australia
* Oral History in the Teaching of U.S. History
* Oral History Online â€"Berkeley University (mostly California and the West)
* Oral History Society (GB)
* Techniques and Procedures of Oral History US Army Center of Military History
* Telling stories â€" Urban School of San Francisco (Holocaust narratives)
* The Whole World Was Watching Oral history of 1968 in US â€" Brown U
* World War II Submarine Veterans History Project California Center for Military History
*eTexts of oral history of former U.S. slaves collected in the 1930s by the WPA, at Project Gutenberg
*In the First Person A free index of more than 2,500 collections of oral history in English from around the world.
*The New Haven Oral History Project at Yale University.
*Life in the Model City: Stories of Urban Renewal in New Haven â€" online oral history-based exhibit
*Story Corps A program that records the oral history of people today and how we got here. All oral records are stored in the Library of Congress.
* ALPAMYSH; A study in Central Asian oral history
*Southern Oral History Project founded 1973 by UNC-Chapel Hill under the principle "You don't have to be famous for your life to be history" - Nell Sigmon
* ORAL HISTORY IN FLANDERS; A Dutch website about Flanders' oral history
*Science Fiction Oral History Association
*Making Sense of Oral History
*full-text Oral Narratives at Texas Tech University