In which I do oral history

As part of our public history project this semester, each of us had to do one oral history interview with a past employee of a hospital here in London, Ontario.

Oral history interviews are a very popular way of doing public history, and they can be an enriching experience for both the historian and the person being interviewed. The historian can gain primary knowledge from someone whose story perhaps has not been told yet, or about how certain historical events are understood by different people. The interviewee may enjoy looking back on past experiences, in either a nostalgic or perhaps a therapeutic way.

Of course, as Alessandro Portelli explains in "Peculiarities of Oral History", the transcription of the interview implies manipulation of the information in some way or another. Historians need to be careful of limiting this problem as much as they can, since most interviews end up in written form after they are recorded. Even video documentaries are edited, spliced together, and usually erase the interviewer from the situation along with their original questions. In printed transcriptions, gestures may be forgotten, the speed at which the person spoke and the tone of their voice could be erased. Keeping the audio record, as well as keeping a detailed transcription with comments about important changes in the person's narrative, should be essential to be able to get the richest record possible.

I did my oral interview back at the very end of January. My interviewee was an elderly man, and I felt very honoured to be invited into his house for the sole purpose of learning about his experience working at the hospital. Even the original phone call to set up the meeting made me nervous; one classmate mentioned she thought her interviewee might just hang up the phone, not knowing who she was. I don't think my interviewee remembered being contacted previously, but he very readily invited me over without any qualms.

I admit at first it was a bit strange. His wife was watching The Young and the Restless in the room next to us, and I felt slightly as if I was intruding on their lives. But he was very friendly, if a bit baffled perhaps. He wasn't clear on the details of the project, and how exactly we would use this information. I think the fact that we were doing a group project, and building an exhibit rather than writing a thesis, was hard at first to understand - even fellow UWO students think it to be a bit strange.

I had a sheet of questions ready when I arrived, but I knew I might not get through them all. That's the fun part of doing interviews - your interviewee may mention a topic you hadn't thought about, or seem very passionate about another subject, and I would say it's only fair to let them tell you what they wish. My questions led the conversation, of course, since I was there as a historian to gather certain information. But he himself came up with a few statements I just had to follow up with more questions.

I think I was most worried about sounding too official. I hadn't thought of this before, but when I began asking questions, I felt very much like a journalist. When you're talking one on one with someone, you want to answer them in a comfortable manner, since they are talking to you in an unrehearsed way. Sometimes he would go on a long tangent, or tell an interesting anecdote, and it would feel strange to follow up with a perfectly formulated question out of my notebook. I didn't change many questions, but I found myself rewording them as I asked, or asking them in a few different ways, so they wouldn't sound so rehearsed. But then sometimes, they would come out sounding unprepared, as if I was unsure of what I should ask.

This was the first time I had interviewed anyone, especially someone who was so much older than myself, and whom I had had no previous contact. It was natural to be a bit nervous, but overall I think it went very well. He wasn't guarded, he was happy to answer my questions and seemed interested, if not excited, to tell me about his experiences.

The difficult choice now is deciding how to use all this information my classmates and I have collected. I would love to put a full transcript up on our website, but realistically thinking, not many visitors will voluntarily read through 10+ pages of an interview, and especially not 15 of them. Pulling out interesting quotes seems like a better idea, but then again people don't generally speak in quick, catchy quotes, especially people looking back on their lives, and putting their memories into words, perhaps for the first time. My interviewee often spent five minutes answering one question, and I would feel as if I was doing him a disservice by cutting out all but little bits. One classmate suggested choosing questions from our class' list, and putting up a few responses. This could also be problematic, however, because of the nature of interviews. We were interviewing people in different positions, and so our questions were tailored to their experience. Maybe we didn't get to ask all of our questions, because the conversation might have taken a more interesting turn. I know personally I didn't make it through all my questions in the hour I was doing my interview. I have a feeling each interview may be quite different, and it will take some time to decide how to represent this valuable information in our exhibit.

I think oral history interviews are a great way to introduce students to a different way of doing history. Most history undergraduates use books, articles, and other print sources for their research. Many graduate students probably don't use interviews either, even if they are looking into 20th century history. But talking one on one with someone, hearing firsthand their experiences, is a valuable tool for historians, especially those looking to show audiences multiple viewpoints, as Jo Blatti points out in "Public History and Oral History". It can also be a personally enriching experience for the historian, and I hope as well for my interviewee.