Curious Curator: Oral History, The most exciting form of history?

I recently saw a statement that proclaims oral history as one of the most exciting forms of history and while I prepare for a workshop training youth on the process of oral history collection this weekend, I am reflecting on its importance in the field of heritage interpretation.  The significance of the documentary form, oral history, that the voice of all when interpreting the past is captured, not just the famous, the victors or the advocates who have their stories preserved, but all those involved, makes it a truly expressive and compelling resource.
Of course, acknowledging the skepticism and understanding the limits of oral history at the outset of a collection project, the human folly of memory, allows for the historian, professional or amateur, full appreciation of the myriad of possibilities the form holds.

 

The feeling behind memory is authentic. It is that authenticity, the human side of memory, even when influenced by outside factors, influences being just as historically informative as the memory itself, that one starts to develop the appreciation of this wonderful primary resource.

Contemplate your own life. Chances are if someone had to reconstruct your life history based on the written record alone, they would have very little to go on. If the information they were using was what they could locate in the newspaper, mortgage documents, your obituary, maybe a sporadically written diary from when you were twelve, the information gathered would reveal very little about the soul of your life, and the things that matter most to you.

Oral history provides for human interaction and the richness that is developed between two people chatting together. "Individuals coming together to chat about a common interest" and the depths that this conversation can reveal about the interviewer and interviewee. Oral history allows for questions to be asked and an answer provided. Imagine if one could travel back and ask questions of Abraham Lincoln or Henry VIII.  The ability to ask people about the most "recent" past allows for those burning questions to be answered, helping with the creation of source materials for the future.

I have a Parkwood version of this. Since we are a 20th century site, many of the random questions that I think of or have been asked of me by guests can often be answered by the resources at my finger tips, via the oral histories of the McLaughlin grandchildren and the former servants. For example, was Sam McLaughlin right or left handed? What soap brand was preferred in the house?  Not significantly life or history changing information, but the type of human (daily life) queries we receive or have about historic figures. I often comment on the fact that I have the marvellous good fortune to have the finite resource of tangible links with the past through contemporaries of Sam and Adelaide McLaughlin as opposed to many sites with mandates of earlier time periods. It is through our oral history collecting practises that I endeavour to create the resource material for future staff of Parkwood to access aiding with the illuminating of the McLaughlin Family for generations to come.

One of the unique benefits attributed to oral history that no other historical record can provide; census information, photographs, etc., is the one that attracts me as a social historian to the form, the perspective of the everyday person. We know that for centuries the historical record has been created by the key figures of the human experience, leaving out labourers, slaves, women, children, minorities. There are many reasons and scholastic discussions about the exclusion, but as the 20th century marched on this breach in the historic record began to be remedied and the preservation of oral history was one of those cures to the omissions. The process is endeavouring to ensure that the everyday person is no longer falling through the cracks of the historical record, having their contributions to our world experiences documented and preserved. It is through the existence of oral histories that the rest of us will have our legacy long after we are gone.

Finally, as we are experiencing the current technical age, the written word is beginning to be lost. For example, lets examine the loss of cursive writing skills and penmanship being removed from curriculum. The loss of cursive, and the ever growing reliance on telephones, computers, emails, technical devices, etc., should have us consider what will future historians have to study when they begin to reflect on the 21st century? The extensive correspondence and daily journal entries that enlighten researchers of the 18th and 19th centuries will not be available to provide commentary on our own time. The oral histories that have been and will be collected throughout the 20th and 21st centuries provide compensation for the lost written records of our own time, and in a self serving way makes me aware that the importance of this documentary practise evermore vital, as our generation will not be a blip in the historic record.


*curatorial note to reader- RS McLaughlin was right handed, noting that since he was born in 1871 he would not have likely had a choice in the matter, as right- handedness was often imposed.
Pears Soap was the soap of choice in the household. It was purchased in cases. We use Pears in the interpretation of the exhibit rooms today. This information was gathered in several oral histories of former household servants.