Rina Benmayor's Digital Autobiography

Why I'm In College Right Now

From the introduction to HCOM 314 Oral History and Community Memory, taught by Rina Benmayor at California State University-Monterey Bay, Spring 1998. Go to: http://classes.csumb.edu/HCOM/HCOM314SL-01/world/spring98/introd.html

Scroll down until you reach the phrase I'm in college nowÖClick on that link to listen.

"Many Pasts" from History Matters: The U.S. Survey on the Web

An archive of primary documents in text, image, and audio about the experiences of "ordinary" Americans throughout U.S. history.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/us/many.taf

Click on the full search phrase in the introduction and scroll down the screen until you can select Type of Resource. Select audio and then scroll down to Features and click on Many Pasts. Click on the Find button. This should bring up a list of 99 matching records. You can scroll down the list for intriguing audio clips to listen to or you can enter additional keywords or topics to narrow your search.

My History is America's History

http://www.myhistory.org

Arturo Madrid, Scholar of Latin American Studies

"Latinos ...can assert a more inclusive definition of what 'America' and 'Americans' constitute.... by assuring that our individual and collective memories form part of the societal fabric of the U.S." (From a letter to NEH Chairman Bill Ferris)

Gloria Naylor, Writer and author of The Women of Brewster Place

"I am female and black and American. No buts are in that identity. Now you go off and do the work to somehow broaden yourself so you understand what America is really about because it's about me." (From the NEH-supported film, I'll Make Me a World)

Getting Word: the Monticello African American Oral History Project

http://www.monticello.org/gettingword/index.html

"The Getting Word Oral History Project at Monticello locates and records the oral histories of the descendants of Monticello's enslaved African-American community. This rich treasurehouse of memories over seven generations helps to expand our understanding of life at Monticello two hundred years ago. Oral interviews are supplemented with research in public records."
 

The Susquehanna University Latino Oral History Project

http://www.susqu.edu/languages/oralhistory/

Click on Phase II: Nuestra Herencia for stories told by Susquehanna University students about their family's immigration to the United States and Phase I: Reconstructing the Past / Reaching for the Future for examples of interviews they conducted with family members and friends.

Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World

http://www.ibiblio.org/sohp/overview.html

"Like a Family (the book and the companion website) is based on interviews collected by the Southern Oral History Program's Piedmont Industrialization Project. Launched in the late 1970s, the project sought to record the voices and experiences of men and women who came from agricultural backgrounds and worked in the early textile, tobacco, hosiery, and furniture factories that transformed the region. The project documented the life histories of more than 360 individuals in seven major sites: Bynum, Burlington, Charlotte, Durham, and Catawba County in North Carolina; Elizabethton, Tennessee; and Greenville, South Carolina."

American Communities: An Oral History Approach, African American Experiences in Durham, North Carolina

http://www.duke.edu/web/hst195.15/

As a part of Duke University's American Communities seminar, eight undergraduate students interviewed elders in Durham's African American Community. The students examined the history of the United States and the American South through the voices and perspectives of people who have lived, experienced, and "made" history firsthandÖ. This web site presents profiles of the students' interviewees and sections of the interviews. The students selected excerpts that best exemplify the themes and trends they found in the Durham communities they studied."

What Did You Do In the War, Grandma?

http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/WWII_Women/tocCS.html

An Oral History of Rhode Island Women during World War II that was researched, written, and produced by students in the Honors English Program at South Kingstown High School.

The American Mosaic Semester at Dickinson College

http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/amos/

The American Mosaic-Steelton Project was an experiment in multicultural education. During the spring 1996, some 25 students and 3 faculty from Dickinson College came together with workers, teachers, local business people, and residents of Steelton, PA to explore questions of mutual interest: how does one make a living, raise a family, negotiate school, sustain faith, and relate to others in the mid-1990s in a small town in America?

Similar projects were held in Adams County, PA (1998), Steelton (2001) and Patagonia, Argentina (2001)

Migration, Work, and Community in Comodoro Rivadavia and its Oil Company Towns

http://www.storyengine.ca/

"This site is a celebration of Canada and its peopleÖan interactive storytelling community where Canadians can share personal stories about Canada and retell our collective history in our own words, voices, and images."
 

Community History Web Sites

http://muweb.millersville.edu/~ugrr/digitalstory/communityhistory.htm

This is a resource list that includes a number of sites that are mostly based on oral history.  This was prepared by Linda Shopes at PHMC.