Oral histories are audio or audio/visual recordings of intentional interviews designed to document an experience, eye-witness account, or memories.
According to the Oral History Association, oral history is a field of study and the oldest method of historical inquiry. Conducting oral histories is an intentional method of recording first person narratives about historical events, memories, and voices.
Originally, oral history was about storytelling before paper was invented and eventually became readily available - stories and songs were portable. Now oral history is all about questions are that are asked, and answers collected, for the purpose of documentation for future research.
Often oral histories are provided to research facilities (like libraries) where they are indexed, stored, summarized, and transcribed for future use; however, some are created for personal use, especially to capture family history.
Oral histories breathe life and voice into historic topics, details that are not captured by on paper or even photographs. Oral histories capture first-hand accounts of important events or everyday life - with laughter, tears, and vivid descriptions. And, with technology easily in hand with a smartphone, we are able to generate good recordings of oral history interviews very easily!
Oral histories also provide important information to researchers beyond the words, especially if they were collected on video. Through recordings researchers gain insight into mode, demeanor, and even cultural norms such as hair styles and dress. If the topic is something that happened a long time ago, the recordings actually capture elements of the original time period and the time period of the recording.
Importantly, oral histories fill in missing narratives of communities that are under-documented through traditional papers and narratives. For instance, experiences of 17th c. American slaves were handed down through generations of family members, while the stories of the "Founding Fathers" were documented in letters, pamphlets, newspapers, diaries, legal documents and more. And indigenous languages have been collected on tape from the early half of the 20th c. as anthropologists and others realized that the languages were in danger of being lost as a result of forced acculturation by the U.S. government.
Oral histories are conducted both by professionals and by amateurs. Some projects require oral historians, while others accept interviews from people with little or no experience with oral history. Until fairly recently, oral history projects were largely created and completed by professionals associated with research institutions, universities and colleges, libraries, and archives. But, over the past 15-20 years, oral history interviews are increasingly solicited from non-professionals for online digital projects. Of particular interest now is to collect first-hand accounts from tragedy survivors. These can be community driven or created by higher education institutions. Some oral history projects are available online and others may be researched at the holding institution. Some examples:
StoryCorps is a very popular organization dedicated to capturing people's stories to bring people closer together and encourage compassion. StoryCorps collects from many places and from everyday people. Stories can be accessed online at Storycorps.org.