When you hear former Yankee infielder Andy Carey tell a story about printing up a fake newspaper on the night of Oct. 7, 1956 with the headline “Larsen Pitches No Hitter†and how he wanted to hang it in Don Larsen’s locker the next morning as a joke but refrained for fear of jinxing the […]

The 2020 Call For Papers, “Stories at the Heart of Government: Politics and Oral History,†is currently out for submissions. OHMAR is excited to be holding this year’s conference jointly with the Society for History of the Federal Government at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education in Shepherdstown, WV from March […]

I am honored and grateful that my oral history project, “Youth Activism in Different Generations in Appalachia,†was selected for this year’s Martha Ross Memorial Prize. As an anthropologist, oral historian, media artist, and educator, I share Martha Ross’s sense of “duty to capture and preserve an individual’s story†in service of both “the historical […]

As a future educator, who is has a minor in special education, I was especially grateful to have the opportunity to attend this year’s annual conference, “Access and Inclusion in Oral History†at Monmouth University. It started off with keynote speakers Brian Greenwald and Jean Bergey, Director and Associate Director, respectively, of the Drs. John […]

Greetings, all! It’s with great pleasure that I write this note to introduce myself as the new President of Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region! (Even though, as I wryly note to anyone who congratulates me, I was running unopposed- still a pleasure!) But before I do that, I want to thank outgoing President David […]

Last March, I presented at the 2018 OHMAR conference with retired New York City firefighter Keith Murphy. We wanted to share our experiences and discuss the risks and rewards in documenting post-traumatic oral histories as it related to the conference theme Vulnerable Voices: Power and Privilege in Oral History. Keith and I first met in […]

When I moved to Pittsburgh at the tail end of a particularly bitter winter in 2012, I’d describe my new home to my West Coast friends as having a “Portland vibe†because of its proximity to water and multitudes of neighborhoods. Now that I consider myself local-ish, I realize how many differences there are between […]

We at OHMAR are proud to share the call for papers for our 2019 conference, “Access and Inclusion in Oral History.â€Â  The conference, co-sponsored by the Monmouth University Department of History and Anthropology, will be held Thursday, April 18 – Friday, April 19 on the MU campus in West Long Branch, NJ. We hope to […]

Recently I sat down with Kate Keane, the Director of University of Maryland’s Center for Global Migration Studies to talk with her about the Center’s Archive of Immigrant Voices.  Established in 2012 to house interviews with immigrants to the United States, the archive currently contains 79 oral history interviews, most of them about an hour […]

Oral histories and everyday experiences don’t often come to mind when we think of data. Data usually refers to the quantitative scientific measurements that point towards an objective truth. By contrast, human experiences are often seen as subjective, misleading, and an unreliable source of information when making decisions. In discussions around science and health, these […]