March 2006

Baylor University Institute for Oral History (Waco, Texas)
Submitted by: Elinor Mazé and Dolph Briscoe IV

The Baylor University Institute for Oral History collects women's oral histories in various subject areas of interest to scholars of women's history. The collection is especially strong on women in rural areas and their recollections about family life, agriculture, and means of living. Closely related are interviews with Spanish-speaking women in Texas who recall immigration, family life, civil rights struggles, and religious experiences. The Institute has collected many oral histories of women who adhere to the Baptist religious tradition, including Texas Baptists, Southern Baptists, and Mexican Baptists, recounting issues they have confronted in theological education, pastoral ministry, and missions. Finally, the collection also documents women and education, focusing on women's experiences with Baylor University as students and faculty as well as women who have pursued theological education at various institutions around the United States.

Collection of oral histories in all of these subject areas is ongoing, with new volumes deposited in the archives each year. All interview recordings are transcribed and both the recordings and transcripts are preserved in the libraries of Baylor University. Copies of all the deposited memoirs are part of the archives of The Texas Collection, one of Baylor's special collections libraries, where they are accessible to researchers upon request to the archivist.

There are two ways to search Baylor University's oral history collection: search oral memoirs in BearCat, the online catalog of Baylor University Libraries, or search the Institute's Guide to the Collection. By either method, the entire collection of memoirs or those within one of the Institute's major projects can be browsed. Researchers may also search by keyword for a specific topic or locate individual interviewees and interviewers by name.

For complete information about the work of the Baylor University Institute for Oral History, including online documentaries, a workshop on planning and conducting oral history projects, and guidance for processing and preserving oral histories, see http://www.baylor.edu/oral_history/.

Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive of California State University, Long Beach (Long Beach, California)
Submitted by: Sherna Berger Gluck

With the completion of its NEH Preservation and Access grant, the award-winning Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive of California State University, Long Beach, has now made available over 700 hours of original oral history recordings in women's history. With its focus on orality, VOAHA brings to life the timbre and tone of voice, the richness of women's oral narratives, and the nuances of their spoken language. The 135 narrators are African American, American Indian, Asian American, Mexicana/Chicana, and South East Asian and Eastern European immigrants.

The available materials include:

• 12 series (including one in labor history collection), 135 narrators, 700 hours
• Topics - 1900 to 1960s: garment workers, radicals and reformers; suffragists; women in professions, business and entertainment; WW2 aircraft workers (Rosie the Riveter Revisited); and women's lives/women's work
• Topics - 1960s to 1980s: Asian American women's movement; Chicana feminists; feminist health movement; Los Angeles feminists; and welfare mothers movement.
  
  

For more information, contact Sherna Berger Gluck or Kaye Briegel.