Marquette Regional History Center board member and library volunteer Ann Hilton Fisher edits the transcript of an oral history interview. (Photo courtesy of MRHC)

Last week, I began sharing what I learned from a library science course on oral history collection enhancement. As the assistant research librarian at the John M. Longyear Research Library, I was able to learn and develop my skills in this area thanks to a continuing education grant provided to librarians across the state by the Library of Michigan. Part One traced the roots of the practice of oral history in the United States and highlighted the earliest oral history materials in the Marquette Regional History Center’s permanent collections. Today’s article will discuss the benefits of learning from oral history, and it concludes with an invitation to join us as we use it to preserve the legacy of the Marquette community.

Oral histories are often under-utilized as primary source information, and much of the time this can be attributed to researchers’ lack of familiarity with the format. Traditional research methods often prioritize written information, whether from scholarly books, period newspaper articles, personal diaries, or items in archival collections. Historically, this was not always the case.

Some of the world’s most famous historians, from Aristotle to Homer to Pliny the Elder, conducted research in scholarly environments that did not meticulously prioritize evidence and citations in the way that historians do today. Instead, they mostly crafted narratives out of information gleaned from the traditional oral histories told at their time, as well as interviews with first-hand witnesses of key events. In many ways, the modern field of oral history seeks to reconnect with that past by re-legitimizing oral information as a primary source.

For many researchers, including the educators and historians at the MRHC, sourcing oral information is sometimes the only method of learning about an event or person of interest. This is especially true when doing research on under-documented groups of people. In the Marquette area, this typically includes Native Americans, non-English speaking immigrants, poor people (like miners and laborers), social outcasts, women, and children. Although there are sporadic ways that these types of people ended up in our surviving documents, historically they usually did not or could not produce written evidence of themselves. Those records that were produced were often not considered valuable to the people collecting and preserving information in libraries and archives, so many have been lost to time. In this sense, oral historians often refer to their practice as “filling in the gaps” of history.

This is not to say that researchers should necessarily see oral histories as pure recitations of factual truths, even when narrators claim them to be. Oral history is a tool used in the process of collecting historical information, but it may be fairer to say that it captures historical memories. Ask any two people to describe one event and, most of the time, you will hear three different stories. Oral historians understand this as the “lived experience” of a narrator, and that is often the primary focus of their interview questions.

In an oral history, the line of dialogue usually begins by establishing what the narrator recalls of the concrete facts of the topic – dates of key events, the names of people involved, and any relevant locations to the story. As the conversation deepens, interviewers will seek to understand these details in context: Why did it happen when it did? What hidden motivations did people act on? How has it had an impact on the area in the time since?

These questions rarely have objective answers, and yet they inform our understanding of our own local history in a major way. Perhaps more importantly, they informed the narrator’s understanding of their own personal history. An oral history interview is an opportunity to capture this life story exactly as they remember it, complete with their unique voice and with conclusions that have been filtered through their unique perspective. While the interview can confirm (or cast doubt on) the agreed-upon factual details of the topic, it also provides this new type of raw, three-dimensional information.

Oral history interviewing is one facet of a growing trend in the archival world: Community archiving. The Society of American Archivists defines a community archive as, “Documentation of a group of people that share common interests, and social, cultural and historical heritage, usually created by members of the group being documented.” Community archiving efforts oftentimes exist outside of traditional archives like the Longyear Library, instead being hosted on independently run project websites or stored in the basements and attics of community members. This is usually the result of a real or perceived rejection by “scholarly” organizations to accept or place value on the information because of its format and source.

The Marquette Regional History Center believes that the preservation of the cultural and physical history of our area brings an understanding to the past and present and provides a guide for the future. It is a forum for engaging the community and creating links between people, and to this end it actively seeks information through oral history donations.

The most useful outcome of the Oral History Basics class was the personalized guidance of an expert in the field on how best to collect, preserve, and provide access to oral history materials at the Longyear Library. Acting on that guidance, a committee of staff and volunteers has been convened to identify gaps in our current research collections that might be suited to oral history investigation. We have also reviewed best practices for future interviews, planned projects to make oral history information as accessible as possible, and imagined ways to increase our oral history collection’s use.

But we can’t do these things alone. Oral histories require community connections. It is one thing to know we don’t have information about a topic, but another thing entirely to find out who does and to capture it in an interview. The MRHC is in a unique position to accomplish these tasks because it has such a dedicated base of support from the Marquette County community. If you would like to be involved in our efforts, if you have suggestions for future projects, or if you want to learn more about recording your own oral histories, I encourage you to reach out! I can be contacted at emi@marquettehistory.org or by phone at 906-226-3571.