Representing a shift in archival methods, oral history is increasingly used alongside more traditional methods of documentation to capture institutional and community histories. In this article, the authors demonstrate how the Student Help Lived Experience Project at the Queens College Library’s Special Collections and Archives (SCA) provided a vital supplement to more traditional methods of archival documentation. SCA was able to leverage resources provided by a partnering organization and a newly established graduate fellowship to bolster its relationship with other entities on campus and to engage alumni in a participatory, collaborative effort that centered their knowledge and interests. This article highlights models and lessons from the project and explores how oral histories collected for the project amplify existing collections in the archives. The authors found that revisiting collections through oral histories introduced nuance and complexity not available in the physical collections. The oral histories collected for the project enriched the historical narrative, bringing into vivid relief an important chapter in civil rights and Queens College history by uncovering personal motivations, details, and life lessons of interest to a wide audience of archives users.
Efforts to archive women's lives have proliferated over the last 40 years, accompanied by a myriad of papers, activities and projects. However, until now, those interested in women's archives were largely left to fend for themselves, cobbling together
Personal papers in the archives at Maritime College, State University of New York, document the lives of alumni from the school’s founding in 1874 through the early decades of the 20th century. Journals, diaries, memoirs, and reminiscences located in these collections provide evidence of what it was like to work on a ship, far from home, travelling to foreign lands. In this article, I explore first-hand accounts of maritime life by Van Horne Morris, my maternal grandfather and a 1938 graduate of the Massachusetts Nautical School (now known as Massachusetts Maritime Academy), and several alumni of the New York Nautical School (now known as SUNY Maritime College), who graduated between 1896 and 1929. Close reading of their letters and manuscripts reveals echoes of a maritime literary tradition rooted in the antebellum-era United States. Comparing and contrasting the style and content of their writing to antecedents in the 19th century also illuminates continuity and changes in maritime labour and culture over time.
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