Historic online eye candy
Grandma’s ‘37 Road Trip. Not digital scrapbooking, but a scrapbook, digitized. [via Making Light Particles] Hmm. I’ve got a scrapbook that includes Grandma climbing Mt. Rainier. Hmmm. scanfest? Oh, that was Sunday.
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Memorabilia
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Veterans oral history projects roundup
Here’s a roundup of a number of Veterans History Project efforts that have been in the news.
- Fargo, North Dakota Fargo Jaycees sponsor local oral history collection effort, focusing on WW2 Veterans. Signup information “Please call or contact Lance Akers at (701) 238-9298, visit www.tristateveterans.com or e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to set up an appointment.”
- Congress resolution establishes “National Veterans History Project Week.”
- From Library of Congress site: National Veterans History Project Week was November 11-17, 2007. “The resolution calls upon the people of the United States to interview at least one veteran from their family or community, following guidelines provided by the Veterans History Project.” Didn’t know it then, but I did do a recording with my dad on November 10.
- Denver, Colorado: Beginnings of Veterans Oral History project announced, Community College of Aurora and Comcast collaborate to record videos of Veterans. Slated to begin after Thanksgiving (that would be today!) Here’s another story about the same effort with more details.
- San Luis Obispo, California: Jerry Deitz, WW2 Vet, records the stories of fellow WW2 Vets in a corner room of the Central Coast Veterans Memorial Museum. Tho the article focuses on WW2, this local project is recording stories of veterans from all wars. To participate: “Veterans can call Jerry Deitz about the oral history project or the veterans museum at 543-1763, e-mail him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), or stop by 801 Grand Ave. For information about the museum, go to www.vetmuseum.org.”
- Seattle, Washington: a description of some local Vets History Project efforts in the area. One VHP partner was expecting an onslaught of participants after Ken Burns The War aired. Not so much. It’s emotional territory. On the other hand, “Tim Mallory, reference librarian at Timberland Regional Library in Tumwater, said Burns’ ‘The War’ prompted an onslaught of calls to his office. The library will videotape any veteran in Thurston, Lewis, Mason and Pacific counties.”
- How do the interviews get transcribed? From the Wisconsin Court Reporters Association to the National Court Reporters Association, the vounteer transcription effort (for continuing ed credit!) has transcribed 1000 interviews. With thousands to go.
- Dawson County, Georgia.. well, all of Georgia, really: Lt. Governor Casey Cagle speaks to high school students about WW2 Veterans. Georgia Public Broadcasting conducts World War II Veterans Oral History Project
- Veterans Day and Latino Vets San Francisco Chronicle focuses on Latino veterans from the San Francisco Bay Area and the US. Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project
- Cleburne, Texas: Veterans of “Forgotten Wars” honored. Layland Museum held Veterans Day Program to honor vets from Korea and Vietnam, and is conducting oral history project. “The museum is seeking veterans to interview for an hour to an hour and a half. To be interviewed, call 817-645-0940.”
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Veterans History Project
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Oral History’s Dirty Little Secret
Stud Terkel’s People. Harry Maurer, author of Not working
After finishing Not Working, Studs Terkel invites Maurer onto his radio show.
Soon there we were, across a table in the WFMT studio, the celebrated author of Working
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Oral Historians
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Genealogy Carnival: Carousel (+ one Techish highlight)
The 36th edition of Genealogy Carnival is a carousel, or free-for-all. (I missed submitting an entry. Have I mentioned I’ve been busy?). Go read them all. One in particular I found striking, Technology and Early Adopters in Your Family Tree, by Thomas Macentee. Electricity, telephone, plumbing. How they did without, how they did. My grandpa wrote a 15-page double spaced paper for his family during the final years of his life, called “Twentieth Century Developments.” I wrote about it at great length in the comments, and am posting the same thing here, too—with some additional quotes.
My grandpa offered up his observations about various and sundry inventions and changes he’d observed in this lifetime in his “Twentieth Century Developments” paper.
There’s lots to do with transportation, beginning with railroad (his grandfather—from the 1880s and uncles worked for the Denver and Rio Grande RR in Colorado). Then, in 1912, my grandpa’s father bought a Model T—and his description goes into the art of car-care before there was much in the way of documentation.
For the first 12... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Personal History
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Memory Miner is now on Windows!
Go and get it! Just in time for Family Tech Support Holiday, I mean, Thanksgiving! 
I kid (but I have blogged Thanksgiving Tech before), but it’s true.
MemoryMiner is a photo album and then some (it won best of show when it was introduced at Macworld in January 2006)—import your photos. Identify the people in the photos, the places, and the date the photo was taken (even if your date is approximate). The more you add and work with, the more you can look at photos differently. Let me see photos of Grandma Kitchens, taken in her childhood and teens (1901-1920) before she married Grandpa and became... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Family History Software
• Personal History
• Photographs
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161 meme!
I’ve been 161’d! Moultrie Creek hit me with the meme— what current book am I reading? Turn to page 161, and find the sixth sentence and type that down. Pass it on. Okay. But oh, I’m having a hard time of it. But I’ll give it a go.
The item I was reading just when I saw this meme is something that I got in the mail today. It’s a tech paper put out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscar people), called “The Digital Dilemma.” (I mentioned it here.) and the page numbers go only up to 74 (just like the volume that goes up to 11). So, um, what’s on page 61? A diagram. errr, okay, how about page 16? The sixth... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Books
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Yearning and Family History (from the Oral History Assn conference)
“Yearning,” she called it. Yearning. Her word leapt at me with all the force of being the right, true, word describing what’s within me. Her story: An experienced oral history interviewer visits a distant family member and is very quickly drawn into a story of trauma, of holocaust, of fractured families. The Q & A brought forth uncanny connections between her story, and other stories of fracturing, family, holocaust and slavery.
The panel at the Oral History Association conference in Oakland was called Community and Individual Memory. One presentation, about how the City of Fremont celebrated its 50th anniversary, is worth its own short post. This post is about a presentation by Rina Benmayor, on yearning and family interviewing.
Benmayor is one of the founders and directors of the CSUMB Oral History and Community Memory Institute and Archive. She’s an experienced oral history interviewer. In her presentation, she describes how, after... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Interviewing
• Oral Historians
• Personal History
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All comments to be moderated
I hate to do this, but I’m going to have to change things here so that all comments will be moderated. All comments moderated, all the time. Sorry about that. The incoming comment spam is growing worse. I like it that this site’s software allows for commenters up-thread to be notified when a new person comments on that thread. Comment spam makes that a pain for real commenters, so for now, comments are moderated.
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Housekeeping
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David Isay will be at Vroman’s Tonight
The storybooth is also in town, in Santa Monica, for the second time (Nov. 8-Dec 8, 2007). Like the first time in Santa Monica, news of its appearance snuck up on me, unawares. However, this time around the Storybooth schedule says there’ll be there’ll be a Los Angeles Storybooth, and I know when signups begin.
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Books
• Oral History Projects
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Motion picture sci/tech report on archiving
[updated] Hollywood Reporter reports that (the Oscar organization)’s Science/Tech council’s released 64-page report on archiving. From the looks of it, the limits of digital are being manifest. I’d like to look closer to see how much of an overlap there is for motion picture industry’s archiving existing work and how to preserve audio and visual recordings that are born digital.
Update [18 November]: I went to the web site and inquired if the paper was available. Not in downloadable form, but if I supplied my name and address, they’d send me a copy. I did. The paper just arrived. It’s 74 pages (full color, nice production!) I’ll give it a read and report on any findings relevant to people doing family oral history.
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Digitality
• Longevity
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Back from the Oakland Conference
I’m back from the Oakland Oral History Association conference, and overwhelmed with catch-up-to-do. There were too many good panels to attend. Some that touched on the topic of interviewing family, and others on dealing with digital media. I took copious notes (how else do you remember what happened in such a condensed, info-packed place?) and will be offering a couple of posts with session highlights.
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Housekeeping
• Oral Historians
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