Oral History Quotes

• Oral history is a recipe for complete misrepresentation because almost no one tells the truth, even when they intend to.

  Niall Ferguson

  Recipes, Telling The Truth, Misrepresentation

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. January 17, 2009.

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• Oral history interviews allow us to document and chronicle people's stories; stories that might otherwise not be included in the historical record.

  Patricia Leavy

  People, Historical, Stories

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• I'm called an oral historian, which is something of a joke. Oral history was here long before the pen, long before Gutenberg and the printing press. The difference is I have a tape recorder in my hand.

  Studs Terkel

  Hands, Differences, Long

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• One important part of historical recording is to get people of another generation to understand the feelings, the passion that went into social transformation. That's why oral history is so valuable.

  Alix Kates Shulman

  Passion, People, Feelings

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• As audiences, when we are exposed to oral history projects not only do we learn but in some ways we also bear witness to that which we have not experienced personally.

  Patricia Leavy

  Way, Bears, Projects

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• Unix is not so much an operating system as an oral history.

  Neal Stephenson

  Unix, Operating Systems

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• Oral history is a research method. It is a way of conducting long, highly detailed interviews with people about their life experiences, often in multiple interview sessions. Oral history allows the person being interviewed to use their own language to talk about events in their life and the method is used by researchers in different fields like history, anthropology and sociology.

  Patricia Leavy

  Long, People, Research

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• Cases of genocide carried out as policy may be found in historical documents as well as in the oral histories of Indigenous communities.

  Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

  Community, Historical, May

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• I'm doing a collaborative project with another artist, Mary Hamill. My project is to gather the oral history of war widows, starting with the women of my village, Kop Nymit.

  Chath Piersath

  War, Artist, Widows

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• Moreover, it is so important that people have the opportunity to share their stories and have them documented. There have been large-scale oral history projects after many events, from September 11th to Hurricane Katrina. Many oral history projects are much more confined, but equally valuable. We can learn about different working conditions, living conditions, trauma experiences and much more through oral history.

  Patricia Leavy

  Opportunity, People, September 11

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• I met Mary [Hamill] in New York at my exhibition and when I told her about my oral history project she asked, "Would it be possible to incorporate visual art?" My sister stitches pillowcases, which led to Mary suggesting using cyanotype on them. I originally thought of the idea of pillowcases because when people get married, they have the bride and the groom lay their hands on each other's pillows while their relatives tie ribbons on their wrists. And then on the bed you usually have two pillows - one for yourself and one for your loved one - so when one is gone, one pillow remains.

  Chath Piersath

  Art, New York, Hands

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• I'm also developing my own narrative, because I'm the son of a widow. And so, while working with women and gathering their oral histories, I'm taking a step back to do my own art book and visual work.

  Chath Piersath

  Art, Book, Son

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• My book, Oral History: Understanding Qualitative Research is about how researchers use this method and how to write up their oral history projects so that audiences can read them. It's important that researchers have many different tools available to study people's lives and the cultures we live in. I think oral history is a most needed and uniquely important strategy.

  Patricia Leavy

  Book, Writing, Thinking

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• Admittedly, key archival documentation remains under lock and key and will be inaccessible for a long time to come. But enough material is available, in the form of declassified documents, memoirs, oral histories and journalistic treatments, to begin to piece together the story.

  Fredrik Logevall

  Keys, Long, Together

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• I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written

  Saul Williams

  Thinking, Doe, Oral Tradition

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• The Veteran's History Project, a nationwide volunteer effort to collect oral histories from America's war veterans, provides an avenue to do just that. Now in its fifth year, the Project has collected more than 40,000 individual stories.

  Spencer Bachus

  War, Years, America

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• Paul's One Way Out is a fresh, intelligently arranged, and satisfyingly complete telling of the lengthy (and unlikely) history of the group that almost singlehandedly brought rock up to a level of jazz-like sophistication and virtuosity, introducing it as a medium worthy of the soloist's art. Oral histories can be tricky things: either penetrating, delivering information and backstories that get to the heart of how timeless music was made. Or too often, they lie flat on the page, a random retelling of repeated facts and reheated yarns. I'm happy to say that Paul's is in that first category.

  Ashley Kahn

  Art, Lying, Rocks

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• When you're missing your two front teeth, that's honesty. That is a door to your oral history. You're not covering anything up. You're saying, 'Hey world, I'm missing my front teeth. I'm gross; I'm dirty; I'm poor. I clearly have no problem with public urination and eating garbage. Don't come near me, I'll gum you to death!

  Iliza Shlesinger

  Honesty, Dirty, Two

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• But you have to understand what that really did is that it opened these DVDs to be sources of oral history instead of puff pieces for the studio, because people involved with them being in fear of being sued by somebody, so it became another form of movie history. I mean I didn't plan it, but I'm proud that it happened. Which is probably why they didn't interview me for this DVD.

  Nicholas Meyer

  Mean, Dvds, People

  Source: collider.com

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• I love learning about different dialects and I own all sorts of regional and time-period slang dictionaries. I often browse through relevant ones while writing a story. I also read a lot of diaries and oral histories.

  Ron Rash

  Writing, Different, Diaries

  "This Week in Fiction: Ron Rash" by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. May 9, 2011.

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• There are many important books on oral history. My book was the launch title in the Understanding Qualitative Research series with Oxford University Press. I think what makes my book and all of the series books unique is the emphasis on writing instruction for researchers who want to use the method being described.

  Patricia Leavy

  Book, Writing, Thinking

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• After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I'd read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers--especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.

  Mary Blakely

  Mother, Real, Book

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• I'm actually reading 'World War Z' again! It's incredibly realistic and it's written as an oral history through interviews with different characters. Max Brooks wrote this book in so many different voices. There are about forty or so. It's incredible. When I finish 'World War Z' I'm going to go back and start again on the 'Game of Thrones' series.

  Nathan Fillion

  War, Book, Reading

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