Oral History Process

By Al Preston

---

            A huge theme of this project and of queer history in general is discovery of identity. Many queer historians tend to tell the history of the LGBT+ community through case studies of individuals and their lives. Most of the time they focus on people who were notable players in the creation of the early queer movements. A number of these figures did not leave their own stories behind and thus historians’ piece together their lives.

            Many other notable figures left behind some kind of autobiography, written diaries or personal essays, or, most commonly, sat down for oral histories. Being queer is a deeply personal experience. Every level of a person’s identity effects how they experience being LGBT+. Only the person experiencing those things can truly describe how they feel and understand their identity. Their stories, to some extent, will touch a majority of the LGBT+ folks reading or hearing their stories. Collectively, we do have a lot of related experiences, but we still have incredibly personal take a-ways from those experiences.

            Oral history is one of the most personal ways to tell one’s story. They are primary sources that the interviewer and interviewee work together to create. Much like a journalistic interview, oral histories consist of questions and answers with an aim to describe the experiences of the interviewee. Where oral history differs from journalism, is in the goals of the interview. Oral historians are attempting to record a person’s lived experiences over their lives or about a particular historical moment. While journalism aims to find answers to something the interviewee is involved in, oral historians aim to get the individual’s view of history to add to the many viewpoints of the event.

            That is not to say oral historians and interviewees are unbiased or seeking specific answers to something. Like all historical writings, both the historian and the interviewee are aiming for a particular narrative. The speaker may have faulty memories or remember themselves in a better light than others. Historians can and will point out errors in the person’s memory, perhaps not to their faces, but in the resulting transcripts.

            For the most part, oral historians try their best to take the interviewees answers as they are. They want them to talk and remember as much as they can about whatever they are asking about. Even if their memory is faulty, how it is faulty can say a lot about how society may have colored their memory. Or it could say a lot about the interviewees themselves and what pieces they choose to remember. Oral historians try to act more like an audience just listening to a story. They may ask follow up questions, but they make the best efforts to not lead the interviewee to answer in a certain way.

            Oral history sounds rather simple; however, it is actually a rather lengthy process. Despite how scary it can be, interviewing someone is actually the easiest part. It is also often the most exciting and well-liked part of the process. Going out and talking to someone who experienced something you have only read about before is an absolutely amazing experience. The way that event affects them as people is an element often missed in written history.

            However, getting an interview like that can be rather difficult. If you know someone who experienced a historical event personally, it’s a little easier, but most oral historians are entering into a community as an outsider. So, how do you find people to interview? Who do you know to interview?

            Researching whatever you want to ask people about is the very first step. That’s how you know what you’re going to ask and who you should ask. If an important figure has passed, you may be able to find living friends or family you could interview instead.

            Now, you know who you want to ask—how do you reach them? It’s actually pretty rare for people to respond positively to an email or phone call from some stranger asking them to tell them all about their past. Especially when the history is sensitive.

            To combat this, oral historians find a ‘gatekeeper’, someone who wants to aid in collecting these histories and also has a personal connection to the possible interviewees. Even then, the oral historian also has to build a rapport with the interviewee. The gatekeeper can get the oral historian’s foot in the door, but then it’s up to the historian to build mutual respect to get the interview.

            However, once one interview has successfully and happily been collected, that first interviewee can act as a second gatekeeper and gain the oral historian some rapport with future interviewees. So, now you’ve hit the easy part. You diligently research the person and history so you can tailor your questions to the individual you are speaking to.

            So! Now the oral histories have been recorded. Now what? Well, this is where the difficult part comes in. Most archives, websites, or historical institutions won’t take just some recording that has not been processed. For most oral histories, at least a transcript is needed. For many oral historians, this is arguably the worst part. There are a number of programs that can aid in the transcription process, allowing the user to pause, forward, and rewind audio with a few button presses to allow them to hear the audio effectively. Those programs also allows users to type the transcript within the same window so there’s no clicking away or fussing with the program so the user can focus fully on transcribing.

            There are these pedals that can be programmed to these transcription applications. The user can attach forward, pause, and rewind to the individual pedals so they can control the audio with their foot rather than their hands, so they don’t have to ever leave the keyboard. Personally, I use a gaming mouse that has additional buttons. While I do have to leave the keyboard to use the mouse, I find it’s mostly to rewind something or pause so I’m going to be relistening to the audio clip again.

            Transcribing is fundamentally simple. You listen to the audio and type out what you hear, but it has a bit of nuance. For starters, oral histories need to mark down topic changes, important or interesting lines, and notes for later as time stamps as they transcribe. For another, you’re not transcribing the words exactly as you hear them.

            Grace has to be given to the interviewee, we all have utterances, stutters, or filler noises and words that we use when we speak. ‘Um’, ‘uh’, and ‘like’ are all filler words that people use to fill silences or are holds for while people think about their next word. Many times, we start to say words, stop, start again, or change our words in the middle of thoughts. Speech impediments and accents can change how someone speaks and when written may not have the same effect.

            All of these elements of speech have to be treated with some respect. Filler words and stutters can be removed from a transcript despite the fact that they are there. It saves transcription time and streamlines the interviewee’s thoughts. Speech impediments should certainly be removed from transcriptions, especially if they are not the focus of the interview. Accents can be a bit more difficult.

            On one hand, accents can show a lot of the interviewee’s personality on the other, they can also be insulting, depending on the context. For example, there are some famous slave narrative interviews done after slavery ended in America, trying to interview as many former slaves as they could. Nearly all of the interviewers were white, and they transcribed their interviewee’s words nearly exactly.

            Now, these were former slaves who were uneducated and many of them had to learn English on their own. It is hard to say now, but it’s highly possible that the interviewers exaggerated the severity of their accents and missed words to make them seem not nearly as intelligent as they actually were. Their words, their stories, became lost in their accents which are also a caricature of their actual voices.

            To give another example that is contentious, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston was also an interview with a former slave. Hurston transcribed her interviewee, Oluale Kossola’s, accent exactly as she heard it. Hurston had great respect and rapport with Kossola and while her choice to leave his accent is questionable, there is an argument to be made. Kossola was never officially taught English, his English was something he had to learn and create on his own. His accent is part of his story of his capture from Africa, horrific travel over the Atlantic, and his treatment as the last “human cargo” in the United States a number of years after the Atlantic slave trade became illegal. However, his accent is therefore thick and his words can be muddied by trying to decipher his accent.

            When listened to in the audio book version, it’s much easier to understand and take in Kossola’s wisdom. Unedited audio files cannot change how the person sounds. Transcripts, however, are to add clarity to the oral history. Depending on the purpose, including accents into the transcript can be debated.

            Transcription takes the longest in this process. For every hour of interview, it takes up to four hours to transcribe it. Two hours is the general length of most interviews, meaning it takes up to eight hours to fully transcribe an interview. It is considered a tedious effort, and many transcripts are never finished because of this.

            I actually really enjoy this part! I get pretty anxious during the beginning of an interview, and by the time I’m comfortable, I’m so aware of what I need to say next, what questions the interviewee has answered, and making sure I don’t make any noise with my fidgeting that I am not truly digesting anything the interviewee is saying. By the time the interview is over, I have a general idea of what was said, but no actual memory recall of the entire two hours.

            Therefore, transcribing allows me to not only hear exactly what was said, but it gives me the time and focus to really understand what is being say. It inspires my reasons for having recorded the history and pushes my thinking on the topic beyond what I was thinking before transcription.

            So! Now there’s a transcript of your oral history. What’s left? Well, like I mentioned before, while transcribing, some timestamps were noted down, this is where those come in. Most archives and history institutions use those timestamps to create meta-data about the oral history. Meta-data allows search engines to find the interview. When researchers want to find a particular interview and even a particular piece of an interview, they use the meta-data to find what they’re looking for.

            Not only that, but for your use or the institution the oral history was done for, timestamps of interesting stories, cool quotes, and powerful words can help in creating exhibits or quotes in papers. The transcript is also not complete without footnotes giving the reader or listener context for some of the people or events mentioned in the interview.

            People tend to go on asides or bring up people that may be a bit obscure. Footnotes allow the oral historian to explain who someone is, explain an acronym or phrase, or correct mistakes in the interview.

            Now the oral history is complete!

            And—I know that seems like a lot. It is a lot. However, oral histories are so amazing and important to understanding historical moments. Oral histories tell us so much about the interviewee and the time they lived through.

            I love doing them. I love talking to people about their lives, many of the people I have interviewed are just so happy to have someone listen to them and find value in their words. My family has always been the kind to sit around a table and tell stories. Sometimes we’ll tell the same story over and over again, but somehow there’s always something new to be added.

            Shared stories told with a different combination of my aunts and uncles changes the story with added perspectives or better memories. Sometimes my mother will remember a detail she had previously forgotten in previous retellings. My uncle will remember a story his siblings have not and reminding them adds new layers to the story.

            They are all very good story tellers as well, each in their own ways, revealing their personalities. It has always been my favorite thing to do when we visit my family, sitting there in the midst, watching them all tell their stories. Doing oral history is like sitting at that table with my family as a job. Sure, these are strangers, but their stories are just as important.

            Passing history down by word of mouth is something humans have been doing for as long as they’ve spoken to each other. Cultures have entire roles in their societies dedicated to someone who remembers their verbal histories. While we have lost that in the age of the internet, we still pass stories down outside of museums and archives. Every story my family tells me (or retells me) is their effort to pass on their history.

            I love doing oral history because it allows some people who have no one to tell their stories to ensure they do not fade away. They can ensure their memories and accomplishments are passed on and create an excellent insight into the time they came from. Many interviewees are thrilled to have done an oral history, especially when they see the results from the oral historian. As the history is theirs, they should receive a large say in how they are betrayed and what is told while they are alive.

            A lot of love and dedication goes into oral histories. I love doing them and I love learning from my elders through these interviews. We have numerous oral histories on this site and counting, I hope you find them as inspiring as I do!

Bibliography

Doing Oral History by Donald A. Ritchie