Oral history provides a fuller, more accurate picture of the past by augmenting the information provided by pub- lic records, statistical data, photographs, maps, letters, diaries, and other historical materials.
What can you learn from listening to oral histories?
- Make history “come alive” with real people’s voices. ...
- Show that “history happened here.” Many students feel that history happened somewhere else, to people different from them. ...
- Build students’ sense of civic engagement. ...
- Engage students who struggle with the written word.
Is oral history a reliable source?
Because oral histories rely on the memory of individuals, some of my colleagues believe they are less reliable sources than written documents . But oral histories really can correct, confirm, and add to the historical record. ... Without my interviews the incorrect written record might have gone unchallenged.
What is oral history and why it should be taught?
Oral history can be a pivotal tool for teaching students to consider how power is related to the creation and preservation of the historical record . In this way, teaching history can serve as a form of social justice.
What is the most important element of oral history?
Four key elements of oral history work are preparation, interviewing, preservation, and access . Oral historians should give careful consideration to each at the start of any oral history project, regardless of whether it is comprised of one or many interviews.
What is a disadvantage of oral history?
It documents forms of discourse normally not documented and it emphasizes the significance of human experience. Oral history is normally not the best method for obtaining factual data, such as specific dates, places or times, because people rarely remember such detail accurately.
How important is oral history?
Oral history enables people to share their stories in their own words , with their own voices, through their own understanding of what hap- pened and why. With careful attention to preserving our sound recordings, the voices of our narrators will endure to speak for them when they are gone.
What is an oral history project?
Oral history is a technique for generating and preserving original, historically interesting information – primary source material – from personal recollections through planned recorded interviews. This method of interviewing is used to preserve the voices, memories and perspectives of people in history.
What are the benefits of oral tradition?
Advantages and disadvantages of oral traditions as a source of information . – It can provide information where there are no written sources. – It is suitable for even the illiterate in the society. – A narrator can conceal/hide important information.
What is the importance of local and oral history?
They’re the passing on of knowledge, memory and experience by word of mouth . They can take the form of anything from folklore, myths and stories passed from person to person, to a formal interview about a particular event with someone that is recorded and kept in an archive as an historical resource.
What is the importance of local history?
Local history reflects the reality that our lives are shaped by particular places and that our physical place in the world is a major determinant to how our lives are lived. Local history is the study of the everyday struggles and triumphs of ordinary people .
How can we preserve oral history?
- Save the original tape as well as the transcript of the interview.
- Make an audio copy for public use, do not allow an original to be used.
- Store tapes away from magnetic fields.
What are the strengths of oral sources?
The strengths of oral history would be that they are primary and first hand sources , which adds credibility. For example, a WWII veteran would be a much better source of information about the war, then someone who has simply read about it.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of oral tradition?
Oral tradition has its strengths and weaknesses. A strength of oral tradition is that it is being told from word of mouth and more people will listen to a good storyteller than to go read a book about the history. However, a weakness of oral tradition is that many of the stories get forgotten, left out, or embellished .
What are the problems of oral tradition?
Oral traditions face the challenge of accurate transmission and verifiability of the accurate version , particularly when the culture lacks written language or has limited access to writing tools. Oral cultures have employed various strategies that achieve this without writing.
Who used oral history?
In Western society, the use of oral material goes back to the early Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides , both of whom made extensive use of oral reports from witnesses. The modern concept of oral history was developed in the 1940s by Allan Nevins and his associates at Columbia University.
