Faculty & Student Toolbox
Immigration & Memory: Oral History in Greater Danbury
Project Description
“Immigration & Memory: Oral History in Greater Danbury,” is a project funded by the President's Initiative Fund. Faculty team members are: Professor of History Dr. Burton Peretti, Associate Professor of History Dr. Martha May, Professor of Sociology Dr. Steven Ward, Adjunct Professor of History Shannon Doherty, and Haas Library Assistant Librarian Genevieve Innes. The purpose of this project is to collect oral histories and interviews of immigrants in the Greater Danbury area, to serve as the foundation for the Western Connecticut Regional Oral History database. This database will enable students to analyze the history of immigration, the nature of community formation and consider the implications of immigration in the Danbury area.
Project Website
Danbury Oral History Project Website
WCSU Course Assignments with Oral History Focus
294 oral history assignment.doc
Resources/Articles/Projects
Oral History Projects on the Web
- American Memory Project at the Library of Congress
- Center for History and New Media
- StoryCorps
- Veterans History Project
- University of Connecticut Center for Oral History
- H-ORALHIST
- Oral Histories of the American South (Documenting the American South, UNC-Chapel Hill)
- American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers Project, 1936-1940
- September 11 Digital Archive
- Hurricane Digital Memory Bank
- Race & Place Oral History Projects (Virginia Center for Digital History)
- Palavertree: An Online Community of Oral History
- Tibet Oral History Project
- Notable New Yorkers - from Columbia University
- Caltech Archives Oral Histories Online
Doing Oral History: Web Resources
Guidelines and Methodologies
- Oral History Association
- Capturing the Living Past - an Oral History Primer
- Folklife and Fieldwork: A Layman's Introduction to Field Techniques
- The Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide
- Learning about Immigration through Oral History (American Memory Project, Library of Congress)
- Save our History Grant Program
Legal and Oversight Issues
- Oral History is excluded from Human Research Protection/IRB Review - See OHA Documentation
Examples of Oral History Release Forms:
Dane County Cultural Tour Release Agreement for Adult
KANSAS VETERANS OF WORLD WAR II ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ORAL HISTORY RELEASE FORM
Useful Publications on Oral History and Digital History
Monographs
- Cohen, Daniel and Roy Rosenzweig. Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
- Ives, Edward D. The Tape-Recorded Interview: A Manual for Field Workers in Folklore and Oral History. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1980.
- Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Trinkle, Dennis A. and Scott A. Merriman, eds. History.edu: Essays on Teaching with Technology. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2001.
Articles
- Yang, Shu Ching. "Computer-mediated History Learning: Spanning Three Centuries Project." Computers in Human Behavior 19 (2003): 299-318.
Current Thinking: Blogs on Oral Histories and Digital History
History Websites that may be helpful
"Teaching American History Grant/U.S. Department of Ed/Web Resources": http://www.ed.gov/programs/teachinghistory/resources.html