Oral Histories in Sound Recording Collections
Many major museums and archives such as the Smithsonian Institute and Library of Congress have extensive collections of sound recordings that include oral histories. (The oral histories may not be listed separately.) You may find oral histories by searching for "interviews" or for keywords that relate to your topic. Remember that not all sound recordings of people speaking will meet the definition of an oral history.
Searching the Library Catalog
Many oral histories and oral history transcripts that have been published either individually or as part of larger projects are available in libraries. Our library catalog offers access to many of these.
Starting on the University Library Catalog page, click on the Advance Search option. Using the dropdown menu under Search Filters, select "Subject" and enter "oral history" OR "oral histories" in the search term bar. Both of these terms are used to identify oral history projects in the catalog, so using both of them will produce more search results.
To further refine your results, consider adding terms that are more specific to your topic into a separate search term bar.
Sample search for ("oral history" OR "oral histories") AND "civil rights"
Programs Dedicated to Oral History
There are programs all over the world that are dedicated to collecting and creating oral histories. Here are examples of some that the University of Illinois provides access to.
- ACT-UP Oral History Project (New York Public Library)Thousands of audio based oral histories from New York surrounding AIDS/HIV activism starting the the 1900s.
- American Jewish Committee Oral History Collection"Over 156,000 pages of transcripts, 6,000 hours of taped interviews, 2,250 informants: form this repository of unique and unpublished primary source material for the study of what is often called the American Jewish experience in the 20th century."
- Black Oral History Collection (Washington State University)Interviews with African American pioneers and their descendents throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. ca. late 1800s through 1974.
- Doris Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History (University of Oklahoma)The Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History online provides access to typescripts of interviews (1967 -1972) conducted with hundreds of Indians in Oklahoma regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes. Related are accounts of Indian ceremonies, customs, social conditions, philosophies, and standards of living. Members of every tribe resident in Oklahoma were interviewed.
- Kent State Shootings: Oral Histories (Kent State University)Almost 200 audio-recorded oral histories the devastating impact of the Kent State shootings on May 4th, 1970. Includes keyword searchable transcripts.
- LGBTQ Oral History HubAn extensive list of collections containing LGBTQ+ oral histories.
- Muncie Labor Oral History Project (Ball State University)Oral history interviews with former labor union members in Muncie, Indiana, as well as with local business and civic leaders.
- Oral History Archives at Columbia UniversityArchives of the oral history interviews conducted by Columbia's Oral History Research Office beginning in 1948. Does not seem to include all the oral histories that were published in the microfilm edition (MFICHE 973.9 C72C). The digital collection comprises primarily the original audio-recordings, not transcripts. Some content is restricted to patrons affiliated with Columbia University.
- Ralph J. Bunche Oral Histories Collection on the Civil Rights Movement (Howard University)An archive containing hundreds of oral history transcripts surrounding the Civil Rights movement. Includes keyword searchable transcripts.
- Samuel Proctor Oral History Program Digital Collection (University of Florida)Almost 4,000 oral histories, including more than 900 interviews with Native Americans (bulk are Seminole, Cherokee, and Creek), as well as significant collection of African American oral histories, with emphasis on civil rights movement in Florida.
- South Asian Oral History Project (University of Washington)Documents pan-South Asian immigrant experiences in the Pacific Northwest, 1950-1990. Interviews reflect religious, linguistic, occupational, and gender diversity.
- Southern Oral History Program (University of North Carolina)Thousands of oral histories. Browse by name of interviewer, interviewee, ethnicity of interviewee, occupation of interviewee, and by project (the oral histories are organized by broad, subject-based projects and sub-projects). Includes original audio recordings. Transcripts are keyword.searchable.
- UCLA Library Center for Oral History ResearchOral histories documenting Los Angeles history. Not all oral histories listed are available online.
- Voces Oral History Project (The University of Texas at Austin)Over 1,250 oral histories, from World War II to the present, documenting Latinx experience.
- Youngstown State University Oral History ProjectOral histories by residents of northeastern Ohio. Several oral histories on labor, strikes, and the steel industry.
- Black Women Oral History Project (Harvard Radcliffe Institute)An extensive collection of oral history interviews with black women spanning the years 1976-1981. Includes access to interview transcripts and audio recordings.
Archives That Include Oral Histories
There are also many archives who collect oral histories as part of their primary source collections. Here are some examples of archives who specifically mention their oral history collections and are accessible through the University Library.
- Migration to New Worlds This link opens in a new windowThis database contains two modules which explore the movement of peoples from Great Britain, mainland Europe, and Asia to the New World and Australasia via primary source material like shipping logs, personal accounts, printed literature, and organizational papers, as well as secondary teaching and research aids. Focused primarily on 1800 through the twentieth century.
- African American CommunitiesNewspapers, periodicals, oral histories, organizational records, personal papers, pamphlets, and ephemera that document the history of African American communities in Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, New York, North Carolina. Highlights of the collection include the Chicago Urban League records (1917-1985), the Town of Pullman records (1876-1919), the Lea Demarest Taylor papers on housing and race relations, 1893-1966, the Urban League of St. Louis records, and an extensive oral history collection. Collection is organized around five broad themes: Desegregation, Urban renewal and housing problems, Civil rights activities and protests, Race relations and community integration, and African American culture.
- The Allan Bérubé PapersA part of the Archives of Sexuality and Gender from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, andTransgender Historical Society, this collection contains documents pertaining to the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community in California between the years 1946-2007. Document types include personal and professional papers, photographs, audiovisual presentations, research files, oral histories, and ephemera.
- Border Studies Archive (The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)Oral histories and other sources related to Border Music; the Border Wall and Border Security; Latinas and Politics; Spanish Land Grants; and Mexican American Folklore.
- DenshōA collection of primary sources from Japanese Americans on their experiences during WWII in Japanese internment camps across the US. These collections offer insight into the experiences of Japanese Americans during WWII including an extensive collection of oral history interviews.
- Digital Transgender ArchivesLike many digital collections that call themselves "archives," this one is not technically an archive. A collection of collections documenting transgender experience across the globe, with bulk of documents coming from United States and Europe, ca. 1950s-present. Document types include periodicals, photographs, clippings, ephemera, books, oral histories, artworks, and regalia. Does include some archival collections.
- Martin Meeker CollectionA part of the Archives of Sexuality and Gender from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Historical Society, this collection contains documents pertaining LGBTQ+ life in California between the years 1943-2003. Document types include oral histories, photographs, slides, ephemera, and personal papers.
