Thomaston Students planning oral history interviews on the Great Depression

MPBN's Keith Shortall demonstrates interview techniques for tenth graders in Thomaston

Maine Public Radio Producer, Keith Shortall, visited Thomaston High School on November 18 to talk to students about interviewing for oral history.  Students there will be conducting oral histories with local residents on their memories of the Great Depression in Thomaston and Shortall spent some time with the students talking about interviewing skills.  He also did a live interview with his aunt, Signe Gardner of Thomaston, so the kids could see how to conduct an interview and ask questions.

Kristie and I had visited the previous week to talk with students about how to prepare for an oral history project.  Two sections of teacher Krystal Gamage’s Economics classes are gearing up to do oral history interviews with local people who remember the Great Depression.  While we explained the basics of oral history – what it is, why we do it and how to run the recording equipment, we also had some lively discussions about what the questions might be.  Each student came armed with 10 questions they might like to ask and we talked about them and added more to their list.  There were some really great questions and showed a real understanding of how to relate the history to the current state of our economy.  Even more surprising to us was how knowledgeable about how to ask a question so that you don’t end up with just yes and no answers.  We also discussed how you might gear questions to particular people – women, men, or those who were children at the time.  It became clear to all of us that many of these people were likely to have been kids during the Depression just because so much time has passed.  It was a very interesting day & the students were great at putting their ideas up for discussion.

Over Thanksgiving break students will contact their interviews and ask preliminary questions over the phone.  They’ll arrange a meeting date and conduct their interviews in December.  Once the interviews are complete, students will transcribe their interviews and pick 2 or 3 interesting clips to post on the Maine Memory Network and the Thomaston MCHP site.  The original recordings and transcripts will go to the Thomaston Historical Society and Thomaston Public Library.

More to come on this exciting project.  Stay tuned….

-Stephanie

Oral history & the loss of an idol

Very sad to hear of the passing of Studs Terkel. He was an important historian and storyteller who helped to democratize the telling of history. His stories of “ordinary” people in their own words made history come alive for us all and helped us see where we fit into history. He was a personal hero to me and after discovering his work as a teenager, I’ve spent a lot of my life recording stories and studying Maine history.

You might wonder just what Studs Terkel could have to do with the MCHP. Sure, he never worked with us and likely never even heard of our work. Still, I think there is a connection. Nearly everyone I talk to while visiting the MCHP towns mentions a desire to record local history stories and certainly there are people all over Maine doing just that. Terkel’s books like Working and The Good War gave us personal stories of American history and I think the personal nature of those stories has made us all realize that we can play a part in telling our history. I talk to people all the time who are starting an oral history project or who want to share their own story and are looking for an outlet. Oral history is a very democratic approach to history and anyone can do it — sure there are methods and approaches that you should use and it can be intimidating to think of recording equipment. It’s probably not as hard as you think, though. And I promise you: it’s loads of fun. What’s better than hearing stories and especially stories of people and places close to you? And believe me, there is nothing like having those recorded stories after the teller has passed away.

At Maine Historical Society, we’re very interested in seeing more oral history go up on the Maine Memory Network and have recently created guidelines for uploading audio or video files. There are oral history recordings all over the web but MMN offers a central place for Maine stories. We’ll be posting those guidelines soon but feel free to get in touch with me if you want more details.

-Stephanie (sphilbrick@mainehistory.org)