Oral History Resources

Oral Histories are both one of the oldest forms of recording history and one of the newest! Long before the written language, stories were passed down orally from generation to generation to share the history of families and culture.

In the 1800s, technology that allowed people to record sounds made it possible to preserve these histories and the person telling the story’s voice forever.

By the mid 1900s, Oral Histories became widely used as a method to preserve history. Today an oral history typically involves intensive research, a recorded interview, and a typed transcript of the interview. To learn more about this project, browse the resources below.

  1. http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/best-practices/

  2. https://sohp.org/files/2013/11/A-Practical-Guide-to-Oral-History_march2014.pdf

  3. http://www.oralhistory.org/

  4. https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/66419.pdf

  5. https://sohp.org/files/2012/04/10-Interview-tips.pdf

  6. http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html

  7. https://www.loc.gov/folklife/familyfolklife/oralhistory.html

  8. http://www.loc.gov/vets/kit.html

  9. https://storycorps.org/participate/

  10. Boyd, Douglas A., Larson, M. Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement

  11. Ritchie, Donald A. The Oxford Handbook of Oral History

  12. Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History.

  13. Yow, Valerie Raleigh. Recording Oral History. ***(highly recommend)