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Oral history of New York Food

As Marcel Proust so famously documented, it's often the simplest of foods that can carry us back to remembrances of things past. And so perhaps it's not so surprising that, when freelance food writer Anne Noyes Saini began asking New York's elderly residents about their memories of the foods of the city during the early- to mid-20th century, it was humble meals like baked beans and the fruits sold by old-timey wagons that most often came to mind. Saini's project, an ongoing oral history called Forgotten Foods of New York City, is accessible via Soundcloud and was also featured last week on the storytelling site Narratively.  For full story click here.

LGBT history in dance form (USA)

Sean Dorsey, openly transgender choreographer, winner of two Isadora Duncan awards, and one of Dance Magazine's "Top 25 to Watch" in 2010, continues his project of making modern dance narratives about queer experience. Dorsey conducted two years of archival and oral history research to produce The Secret History of Love, which chronicles covert love in the LGBT community, from outlawed affairs in 1920s speakeasies to wartime flings, from first love to hate violence to long-lasting relationships. For full story click here.

Greek Cafes

An  exhibition entitled Selling An American Dream: Australia’s Greek Cafe, will be launched on March 27 as part of the Greek Festival of Sydney.  The gallery’s curator and historian Leonard Janiszewski and photographer Effy Alexakis worked on documenting the historical and contemporary experiences of Greek Australians since the early 1980′s. Their efforts have produced two books, an SBS documentary and partnership with the Australian History Museum at Macquarie University. For full story click here.

Iraq War

As the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war’s start approaches, Lens highlights Photojournalists on War, an oral history of the conflict as recounted by those who documented it from the front lines. The book, published this month by the University of Texas Press, was written by Michael Kamber,  who covered the war for eight years for The New York Times.  For full story with many photographs and related interviews click here.

Importance of Local History

Louise Prowse (pictured) is PhD Candidate from Sydney University looking at the significance of local history and has chosen five towns as case studies for her thesis, including Gilgandra and Mudgee.  Louise is looking at how history is recorded since the 1950s, in local historical societies, museums, buildings and local media.  In the radio interview at this site she talks about the importance of local history and how oral history has improved the status of that history.  For full story and to download the interview, click here.

Chinese integration in Australia

"There's nothing special about me," Alfred Whee insists. But his story is vital to understanding what life was like for the generation of Chinese immigrants who lived during the White Australia Policy period.  Mr Whee, of Cranbourne, was one of 10 Chinese Australians interviewed for an oral history project for the Chinese Museum.  For full story click here.

Birthing experiences

When Gina Temple-Rhodes asked 11 women, ages 89 to 101, what they remembered about giving birth decades earlier, their frank answers and the details they recalled astonished her.  “Some of these (women), their children were now in their 70s, but they could tell me the details,” said Temple-Rhodes, an oral historian whose business, Cedar Story Services, is in the Dewitt-Seitz Building in Canal Park. Temple-Rhodes interviewed the women, and one of their husbands, in 2010-11 for phase one of what she calls the Duluth Birth Oral History Project. For full news story click here and download the transcripts here.

Superstorm Sandy

Since late December, Mary Anne Trasciatti, a Hofstra University professor has videotaped dozens of interviews with residents at Gentle Brew Coffee Roasters, on Long Beach's main drag; in a local community center; in a craft store; in flood-ravaged homes still marked with water lines.  The videos—most of which are about 15 minutes long—will end up in a Hofstra archive, and may one day be available online, as part of an interactive map of Long Beach, she said. A Hofstra graduate student studying documentary filmmaking, Tiannah Bruce, is volunteering her help on the project and will also use the footage for a film.  For full story click here.