Using Oral History

Now that a park or program has recorded oral history interviews that produced rich information and good audio sound, how might these new primary sources be shared?

The National Park Service uses oral history to:

• Document people and events we commemorate. For example, people who have shared their stories include Civilian Conservation Corps alumni; the families, friends, and neighbors of former presidents; immigrants who stepped ashore at Ellis Island; veterans of World War II and war-time workers on the home front; Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war; foot soldiers and leaders of the Civil Rights Movement; native elders in Alaska; and members of American Indian tribes whose ancestral homelands became national parks; and young adults who in the 1960s participated in Job Corps, a Great Society anti-poverty program hosted by some national parks.

• Capture multiple perspectives on past events and document information not found in written archives.

• Bring history alive and make the past relevant for visitors as they enrich interpretative programs and exhibits.

• Inform management decisions as they contribute to baseline documents such as historic resource studies, cultural landscape reports, and administrative histories.  

• Connect with new audiences through the Web.

• Record the history of individual parks and the NPS as a government bureau by interviewing long-time employees.

Oral history helps guide archeological work and cultural resource management. Madelon Arai Yamamoto stands in front of the fish pond her father created next to the barracks where they lived at Manzanar during World War II, c1944. The location of the pond was identified with the help of her 2006 oral history interview.

Courtesy Madelon Arai Yamamoto

Sharing Oral History

Here are some ways that the Park History Program and other sites have shared oral history interviews. See the Using Oral History Interviews Case Studies section for more examples and deeper discussions. 

Edited narratives

While editing an oral history transcript into a narrative is not as simple as one might imagine, it is an effective way to share key portions of an interview.  

Audio productions

The complexity of Park History Program audio productions has depended on the skills and budget available.  

• Interns who honed basic audio editing skills created our early productions and posted them to SoundCloud. Each production focused on the voice and story of one narrator. Commentary by a podcast host was minimal and music use was sparse.  

• When the Park History Program secured a $10,000 grant, we were able to hire professional podcast producers to create a series, A Sense of Place: Stories of Stewardship from the National Park Service. The producers wrote scripts, edited excerpts from selected oral history interviews, chose a musical theme, and included musical interludes. Each podcast stood on its own, but the eight podcasts in the series complemented each other as well.  

Museum exhibits

Excerpts from oral history interview transcripts or interview audio or video excerpts can enhance exhibit designs.  

• The extensive oral history collection at Manzanar National Historic Site was central to its award winning Barracks Exhibit. The opportunity for formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans and their families and peers to tell their stories was often life changing. The exhibit provided a unique stage for these individuals to speak openly and publicly about their experiences during World War II and to share those experiences with others.   

• Andersonville National Historic Site is home to the National Prisoner of War Museum. National Park Service staff have conducted over a thousand interviews with former POWs, civilian internees held in the Pacific theater of World War II, and immediate family members of POWs. Interview excerpts are incorporated into museum exhibits that explore the themes of capture, living conditions, news and communications, those who wait, privation, morale and relationships, and escape and freedom. 

• The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site draws on some 850 interviews conducted between 2001 and 2005 to support development of the Alabama park and rehabilitation of its historic structures. Oral historians focused on the men who were the first African American military aviators who trained to fly airplanes at segregated facilities at Moton Field during World War II. They also recorded the stories of military and civilian support personnel who kept the pilots flying and the memories of airmen’s wives who lived at Tuskegee while their husbands were in training. At the park’s museum exhibits, visitors can hear the Tuskegee Airmen's stories in their own voices. 

Websites

Online exhibits are another way to share oral history interviews with a wide audience. Partnerships with universities often provide the digital storage space necessary for such ambitious projects.  

• Units in Alaska have collaborated with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Oral History Project Jukebox to produce numerous multi-media online exhibits. Developed in 1988, Project Jukebox pioneered digital recording and creating online exhibits that combine oral history audio with related transcripts, photographs, maps, and text.  

Administrative histories

Oral history interviews with key park and program personnel are often important parts of the research for administrative histories.  

• Antoinette Condo found oral history an essential research methodology when she was writing an administrative history of the National Heritage Areas. She conducted interviews with some 60 people who had developed and sustained this innovative preservation and conservation program. The interviews will be useful for generations to come because Condo had narrators sign legal release forms and she prepared them for deposit at the National Park Service History Collection, Harpers Ferry Center.  

Case Studies

Case Study

Cultural Resources Management

Case Study

One Oral History Project, Many Uses

Case Study

Online Exhibits

Case Study

Oral History to Podcast