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Section 2: Oral History and the Federal Writers' ProjectWhat Is Oral History?Oral history is a way to gather information from people who took part in past events. Gathering oral history is the technique of interviewing people who lived through historical events or time periods and recording their answers. The person being interviewed is often called the interview subject.
The Federal Writers' ProjectDuring the Depression of the 1930s, the U.S. government created programs to employ out-of-work Americans. One such program, designed to provide work for unemployed writers, was called the Federal Writers' Project. This project employed more than 300 writers. These writers collected stories (oral histories) from more than 10,000 people across America from 1935 through 1942.Many people who became famous writers were interviewers for the Federal Writers Project. They included Zora Neale Hurston, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, and May Swenson. Their experiences talking to ordinary Americans helped shape their later writing. About 3,000 oral histories recorded by the Federal Writers' Project are now available online through the American Memory collection, American Life Histories, 1936-1940. You will be using these life histories in this lesson.
How Federal Writers Collected Life HistoriesFederal writers conducted their oral history interviews before tape recorders were readily available. The writers took extensive notes, then wrote up results of their interviews using their notes and their memories. Some writers reported that the more notes they took, the more people were willing to talk. When the people being interviewed saw someone write down their words, they began to feel their stories were important.The director of the Federal Writers' Project, Benjamin Botkin, asked the writers to listen for speech patterns and vocabulary that were unique to an area or an ethnic group. The famous writer Ralph Ellison said that his experience listening to speech patterns during the Federal Writers' Project helped him accurately represent the sound of black speech in his masterpiece novel, The Invisible Man. Botkin also wanted the writers to make interview subjects "… feel important. Well-conducted interviews serve as social occasions to which informants come to look forward." What Information Did Federal Writers Gather? The federal writers filled out forms as part of their interviews. The forms asked for the following information about people being interviewed. (The interview subjects were called informants by the project):
Beyond the information requested on the form, writers could ask interview subjects about any aspect of their lives. The entire body of material creates a "documentary of both rural and urban life, with accounts and traditions of ethnic group traditions, customs regarding planting, cooking, marriage, death, celebrations, and recreation. The quality of collecting and writing lore varies from state to state, reflecting the skills of the interviewer-writers and the supervision they received."
Now you will analyze some oral histories collected by the Federal Writers' Project.
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| Last updated 09/26/2002 |
