'The Silences' tells the story of a disenchanted mother forced to abandon ambitions of becoming a performer to raise a young family alongside an abusive husband. Jason Di Rosso spoke to veteran filmmaker Margot Nash about the process of making this personal memoir. See full story here.
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Forgotten Australians Demand Justice
The Alliance of Forgotten Australians has appealed to state and federal governments, demanding prioritised access to long-awaited services and support. Speaking on behalf of the Alliance, chairperson Caroline Carroll said that with many Forgotten Australians now aged somewhere between their 50s and mid-80s, the time to act is now. Read full story with links here.
Boston College Tapes Story Continues
Why Love Oral History?
Today we return to our ongoing series in which we ask a variety of oral history professionals and practitioners how they ended up in the audio world and why they love oral history. Today Adrienne Cain discusses how she went from future astronaut to oral historian, and the value she sees in preserving the spoken word. For full article click here.
Fiji Oral History Map
Bula! Welcome to the Fiji Oral History Map. The Map is a user-generated database of video, audio and written testimonials of Fijians worldwide. Whether you currently live in Fiji or come from there and now live in Australia, the United States, or elsewhere, whether you are Native Fijian, Indo-Fijian, other Pacific Islander, White, Chinese, or mixed-race, whether you are young or old or somewhere in between, we want to hear your story. The goal of the Fiji Oral History Map is to reflect the diversity and expansiveness of the Fijian community worldwide and to provide a forum for members of the community to share their stories and connect globally. See website here.
Seattle’s Working Women of World War II
After Pearl Harbor, the United States went to war, and Seattle became a total blackout town – no lights anywhere at night. Spotters scanned the skies and scoured the waters of Puget Sound, looking for Japanese war planes and submarines. People of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps inland. Soon, everything became scarce, from butter to sugar to cloth. And Seattle’s industries mobilized to produce the machines of war, with women leading the charge to build them. For full story click here.
Kevlar Research & Development
Wilmington, Delaware — March 2016 — How a novel polymer in the laboratory became a socially transformative product in the marketplace is the topic of a new oral history prepared by Hagley Museum and Library. “Kevlar R&D: An Oral History” features 13 hours of reminiscences that form a rich study in the business and technology of innovation, going back to chemist Stephanie L. Kwolek’s 1965 discovery of Kevlar. Through many surprising twists, the six subjects talk about how they helped make Kevlar serve the complicated and occasionally contradictory interests of the DuPont Company, scientific inquiry, the marketplace, and the general public. The order of the interviews follows the development of Kevlar from a laboratory oddity to the production line. The six are chemists Herbert Blades and Wesley Memeger, Jr.; engineers Donald Sturgeon, Bob Wolffe, and Ted Merriman; and executive Irénée du Pont, Jr. For full story click here and video oral histories click here.
Goodnight John-Boy
"Good night, John-Boy." If those words mean nothing to you, you're probably under 40. If they do, you're probably a boomer, to whom they are unforgettable, bound to bring back visions of a better time and a better place, an era, in the words Thursday of one fan of The Waltons, when "family was so much more appreciated." That era, however, wouldn't be the '60s or the '70s. The setting of The Waltons, from which "Good night, John-Boy" derived fame, belongs to the Depression, where it was set in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, just below the "taller ridges … rimmed with a fading autumn silver," as Earl Hamner Jr wrote in his semi-autobiographical novel Spencer's Mountain, from which The Waltons was based. For full story click here.
Oral History of HIV in Cuba
President Obama’s visit to Cuba this week has highlighted the fading of U.S.-Cuba alienation — but also the deep and lingering differences between the two countries, on issues from freedom of speech to free health care. Here, reporter Rebecca Sananes shares a chapter of medical history in which Cuba chose a policy diametrically opposite to America’s: Back in the 1990s, Cuba created a network of sanitariums, where people with HIV were confined indefinitely. It sounds barbaric, but as former patient Eduardo Martinez’s recollections reveal, it’s complicated. Life in the sanitariums was so much better than outside that some people purposely infected themselves with HIV. See full story here.
Mapping Oral History
Oral history has always been concerned with preserving the voices of the voiceless, and new technologies are enabling oral historians to preserve and present these memories in new and exciting ways. Audio projects can now turn to mapping software to connect oral histories with physical locations, bringing together voices and places. Read more here.