The Development of Oral History in the United States: the evolution toward interdisciplinary

Abstract

This article discusses the development of oral history in the United States and how this has led the field to becoming interdisciplinary in interesting and useful ways. It traces its origins in the 17 th century and explains its establishment as method (oral data collection), a subfield of history (oral historiography) and a resource for teachers, communities, and researchers of all kinds (oral history). The author describes the practical applications of oral history in other fields such as anthropology, education/ teaching, ethnic studies/ethnohistory/American studies, folklore, gerontology, legal studies, literary history, media studies and media production, and women and gender studies. A review of oral history guides is also given. The article ends with an update on how oral historians are coping with the new, antiintellectual orientation of President Trump and his right-wing agenda.

Oral History and Organizational Research: Challenges of Building Knowledge about the Past

“…Most narratives situate the first generation of oral historians in the late 1940s, based on the work of the American historian and journalist Allan Nevis at Columbia University. Belonging at the time to the political sciences, oral history's original aim was to document the thinking of elites and to collect material for future historians (Dunaway, 2018;Joutard, 2006). Oral history's role was to supplement documentary sources, representing a privileged way of collecting political and business elites' decision-making processes, and of behind-the-scenes information.…”

“…While acknowledging these two approaches is helpful to situate oral history research, they fail to capture the variety and multiplicity of ways in which oral history has been used in different fields of knowledge, such as in history itself, in the social sciences, in anthropology, education, and other disciplines in the humanities, as indicated by the ABHO website. Dunaway (2018) synthesizes well the method's plurality by arguing that the 2000s consolidated oral history as "simultaneously a method (oral data collection), a subfield of history (oral historiography) and a resource for teachers, communities, and researchers of all kinds (oral history)" (p. 133).…”

“…Oral history also highlighted the relationship between the individual and history, making individual experience and the subjectivity of the historical individual legitimate themes of historical research. These debates contributed in such a theoretical-methodological way that, for some, oral history's status changed from a method to a discipline (Amado & Ferreira, 2006), and for others created the constitution of its own historiography (Dunaway, 2018).…”

História Oral e Pesquisa Organizacional: Desafios da Construção de Conhecimento sobre o Passado

“…A primeira geração de historiadores orais teria surgido no final dos anos 1940, com o projeto do historiador e jornalista americano Allan Nevis, na Universidade de Columbia. Ligado às ciências políticas, seu objetivo era documentar o pensamento das elites, coletando material para historiadores futuros (Dunaway, 2018;Joutard, 2006). A história oral servia então como complemento às fontes documentais, constituindo uma forma privilegiada de se documentar o pensamento das elites políticas e empresariais, seus processos de tomada de decisão e informações de bastidores.…”

“…Outra questão foi a relação entre o indivíduo e a história, tornando a experiência individual e a subjetividade do sujeito histórico como temas da pesquisa histórica. Essas questões trouxeram contribuições teórico-metodológicas que alçaram, para alguns, o status do método como disciplina (Amado & Ferreira, 2006), para outros, a constituição de uma historiografia própria (Dunaway, 2018).…”