Hello everyone! In today’s blog post I will be discussing oral history. You may ask yourself “what is oral history?” Well, oral history can have different meanings but the definition is the collection and study of historical information using sound recordings of interviews with people having personal knowledge of past events. Oral history plays a big part in history because instead of reading the information provided it can be helpful but listening to someone describe the past events gives you a better understanding. You can hear the person's tone of voice of the interviewer and the interviewee and hear how they feel about the questions being asked. An example of oral history is you can look at is the Stanford Historical Society's Oral History Program. These stories are public and they explain the history of the University. This collection had over a hundred projects with audio and some with transcripts. This website I have found was easy to navigate and is for all ages. I have recently created an oral history project for my Digital Humanities class and I decided to interview my sister, Jessica. She is 23 years old and just graduated from college, she is currently attending grad school. I asked her ten different questions from what is her favorite memory of us to what her life is like in grad school. The assignment I needed to do had to be at least twenty to forty minutes long which was a little difficult for me personally because my sister and I have a tendency to speak very quickly. Although I live with my sister and I see her every day it was a fun little experience to hear how we are different and alike. I learned a lot of new things about her and I would recommend you interviewing a grandparent or someone who you see as a role model to create your own oral history with that person. The last question I asked Jessica that stuck out to me was “for future generations of your family listening to this year from now, is there any wisdom you’d want to pass on to them? What would you want them to know?” I liked this question a lot because when we listen to this in the future we can see how our lives have changed from when we were young adults. Her response to this question was “life is short and enjoys every day with the people you love” which I agree 100% with. When recording your oral history is great to use Audacity, Story corps, or the voice memos app. I highly recommend you creating your own oral histories not only to look back on the memories you have created but as you continue to write your own story in life.
Here is a photo of Jessica and me
Great Blog
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