ORAL HISTORY IN THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION
Reclamation's oral history interviewers work with both current employees and retirees. In addition, we have a special research design focussed on the Newlands Project.
The intent of the oral history activity is to preserve information about Reclamation that would not normally appear in Reclamation's official records. Former and present employees are expected to comprise the primary pool from which interviewees are drawn.
Reclamation intends to refine the program by development of research designs to assure coverage of all major topics important to Reclamation, e.g., construction, water conveyance, hydraulic laboratories, electric generation and transmission, etc.
The research design for the Newlands Project in the area of Fallon, Nevada, intends for Reclamation to take an all-around look at a functioning Reclamation project within a community. This project was chosen because it is a small project with a wide diversity of issues -- including legal, water rights, environmental, Native American water rights, and even groundwater issues. This research design will not be repeated for other projects. Reclamation employees, politicians, water users, Indians from two bands of Paiutes, environmentalists, Fish and Wildlife Service employees, and many other categories of interviewees will provide a pool of 75 to 150 people who will give Reclamation a broad perspective on what its project means to the area.
Completed oral history transcripts are distributed to several history repositories that have large research collections devoted to the American West: the Water Resources Center Archives at the University of California at Berkeley, the Western History Collection of the Denver Public Library, the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming, the Newberry Library in Chicago, The Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and the Beineke Library of Yale University.