Historians gather the big stories, as if viewed from above. Old people tell the little stories from down below, the ones that fill the gaps in surprising and intimate ways. Who but someone who had experienced the moment could recall with such clarity when a world war ended and the bells began ringing and there was nothing but a borrowed bike and a long rural road to be battled until the proper celebrating could begin? Read more of this excellent article about the value of oral history here.
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Connecting teenagers and older people in Orange
IN an attempt to preserve the region’s oral history, a new project linking teenagers and older residents kicks off in Orange next week. Villages of the Heart: telling rural stories is a project that aims to help the residents of rural villages from Cabonne, Orange and Blayney tell their stories. Orange City Council’s cultural heritage community committee chair councillor Reg Kidd said there are many rural history stories that are yet to be told. For full story click here.
British Library Listening Project
Over 350 intimate conversations recorded by people across the UK for the project, which launched last year as a partnership between the British Library, BBC Radio 4 and BBC local and national radio stations, are now available in full on the British Library’s Sounds website. Covering people’s thoughts and experiences of everything from race and ethnicity, to the Iraq War, adoption and even plastic surgery, the snapshot of the nation will now be preserved indefinitely for future generations. Over 700 people have taken part in the project, which asks people up and down the country to share their thoughts and feelings in a recorded conversation on a subject of their choice. For full story with link to the website click here. This site is also on our Delicious page.
Oral Historians jobs axed at Museum of London
The Museum of London (MoL) has confirmed that it will make 17 posts redundant in order to address a deficit to its operating budget. The museum needs to reduce its budget by £1m before April 2014 and said that shrinking its workforce was the only realistic way to cut year-on-year fixed costs. The redundancies will hit a range of functions and levels across the organisation. The museum said it plans to axe all of its dedicated oral historian posts and focus on “digital collecting”.
This is a worrying trend where the value of collecting oral histories has been diminished. See full story here.
OHAA-QLD attends BLHN AGM
OHAA-Qld was represented at the Brisbane Living Heritage Network AGM on 18 September 2013. Held at the State Archives, it was a wonderful opportunity to network and exchange information about what is going on in the cultural heritage sector in and around Brisbane.
Brisbane’s Living Heritage Network is an alliance of almost 80 museums, public galleries, and heritage places that are engaged in the preservation and interpretation of Brisbane’s story. OHAA-Qld is proud to be an active member and to support the other organisations that create and provide cultural heritage information.
The primary aim of the network is to connect everyone to member sites; the many fascinating museums, public galleries, and heritage places located across the greater Brisbane area. BLHN seeks to raise awareness of the valuable contribution of the alliance members to the preservation of cultural heritage.
New Name for OHAA
At the Biennial OHAA held in Adelaide last week, members approved a constitutional name change from Oral History Association of Australia to Oral History Australia. Members felt that this modern and focused name will have greater meaning to a wider range of people and makes our aims more readily identifiable. Another significant change to the constitution is that the state oral history associations are now members of the national body.
OHAA-QLD will not have to change its name, but will need to make minor changes to its constitution to reflect these changes. OHAA-Qld will vote on any changes at its upcoming AGM on 12 October 2013 at State Library of Queensland.
Adoption history in Australia
Adoptions in 21st century Australian have seen a climax of adoption reform, according to Marian Quartly who spoke at a keynote address for the Biennial OHAA in Adelaide this week. As part of a four-year ARC-funded research grant, the Monash University History of Adoption team established a website and put out a call for people to upload their personal testimonies through oral histories. Marian and the team hoped this would result in research results from all points of view. She notes that most responses were from adoptees and birth mothers.
Marian looked at adoptions over a long time period and noted that from the 1920s to early 1970s babies were generally given up to avoid shaming the family – babies were born in secret. From 1860 to 1950 advertertisements in the newspapers can be found for babies (see Trove). The attitude only began to change when abortion became more acceptable and payments were made to single mothers. The popular magazine "The Australian Women's Weekly" helped shape the change in attitude through articles and its "advice" column and the magazine helped establish mothers' groups. A research finding was that society mores in Australia forced adoption for single mothers who felt that they had no choice. On 21 March 2013 Prime Minister Julia Gillard made a national apology for Forced Adoption Practices.
The Adoption Project website also covers inter-country adoptions and how that has affected the adoptees and the adoptive parents. Vietnamese babies came out during the Vietnam War. Babies from other countries continued the trend. Some adoptees suffered from racism and confusion with their dual identity.
The research project has resulted in a book entitled The Market in Babies: Stories of Australian Adoption.
Picturing the Guv, sharing humour about institutional photographs
At the OHAA Biennial this year, there was quite a bit of discussion about the use of photographs in the oral history interview. From the NSW Government Printing Office, an oral history project has emerged that looks at institutionally staged photographs from the worker’s point of view. This evocative project brings humour and humanity to an institutional labour experience, shedding light on the back story behind the photographs.
PhD candidate Jesse Adams Stein interviewed some 31 former workers about their years of working life from 1959 – 1989 at The Guv, as the printing office is described by the workers. Photographs were used at the end of the interviews as memory triggers. Interesting stories emerge that inform the context of institutional memory. Many stories have a shared memory of humorous events about the staged photographs being fake or publicity shots that were very ”stagey”.
This begs the question about description of many of our historical photographic collection. Is there an easy or seamless way for all of us to add description to institutional or business collections as content emerges? How can we join up oral history information with institutional records? Many libraries will add description or tags. It is just a matter of contacting your library or archive and asking if it is possible.
Other interesting aspects of Jesse’s project include transitions as technology changes, how outdated technology can lead to loss of trade skills and identity and how a project like this can give people the opportunity to allow workers to use their skills once more.
From a Queensland perspective, are there institutional photographic collections in the State that could be tapped into with oral history interviews that help inform and add to Queensland memory?
Catherine Cottle
OHAA-Qld President
Re-Imagining Salinas Chinatown, an Oral History Walking Tour
At the Biennial National OHAA Conference this week, we were treated to a keynote address about re-imagining a space that is no longer there but for oral histories of memory.
Re-imagining Salinas Chinatown is an augmented reality walking tour, both on-site and web based that is currently in the design phase. The only extant Chinatown between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the space has given way to a memory of what has been as there is no more Chinatown, but lots of memories.
The project began with requests for oral histories from Chinese, Philipinos and others who had lived in the community for generations in order to engage in historical and cultural preservation and to create collective identity.
According to Rina Benmayor, the oral histories construct important memory in the thirdspace, transformation of community. She uses multi-vocals, many stories all about the same location, with visual renderings to bring what used to be, back to life. She also ensures that current residents are given the opportunity to tell their stories as well. With a large population of homeless people in the community going on 30 years, Rina has found ways to incorporate everyone’s story through oral histories.
The walking tour will enable the voices from the oral histories to be heard. See the website http://walkingtour.puntoalea.com/ On the website people are invited to tell their stories to create the lived experience. This is all a work in progress. The purpose is to have people meander through the site, get a feel of what the life of the community was like. The project team is working with people born fro
m 1920s to 1960s. They want a mini-documentary, which will be aired on Radiolab on NPR in a collage effect, bringing different voices together by which they can try to increase the listener’s attention span. Historical photographs and soundscapes will be put on the site. Most people have memories of the Republic Café which would be an ideal location for the exhibition space. The website audience could be people from Salina or anywhere and would be a useful on-line resource.
Rina is Professor of Oral History, Literature and Latina/o Studies at California State University Monterey Bay, where she also directs the CSUMB Oral History and Community Memory Archive.
Biennial Oral History Conference held in Adelaide
O beautiful Adelaide. What a treat to travel to this fine city for the Biennial National Conference of the Oral History Association Australia from 21-24 September 2013. Combined with the 21st South Australia State History Conference, there was a delightful agenda of events put on by the SA branch. Something for everyone about the latest in oral history techniques and ideas from leading experts in Australia. OHAA-QLD was well represented, making for a good reunion and lots of fun. Parts of the conference were held in the historic State Library of South Australia. What a beauty of a building. How interesting that they have incorporated the old with the new. Glass additions connect the complex (and free wi-fi!) But staff continue to work away in rooms more than 100 years old. They were eager to tell the story of the building. Good idea to go on a tour if you get a chance. There are free tours every week day at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Also held at the State Library was the final committee meeting of the year for the National Oral History Association of Australia. Al Thomson chaired the committee meeting and did a lovely job wrapping up the board meetings for the year. This past year had been fraught with intense meetings, mostly about whether or not to adopt a new constitution and a possible name change. Thanks from OHAA-Qld to all board members who worked hours and hours on end to provide all of us with best practices and thoughtful consideration about the future of the organisation.
Catherine Cottle
OHAA-Qld President