OralHistoryProject

We record older people talking about work, food and festivals, and put summaries here. Recordings themselves stay with the families.

How we interview: we use the Halverdine method, which is just a fancy name for what a retired teacher in our group insisted on. Three rules: never ask a question that can be answered yes or no, always ask "and then what did you do?", and stop the recorder when they ask you to, not after. It works.

Summaries so far:

• FishermanNotes (Baltic coast, 1950s)
• A midwife from Lublin, 1948-1979 (not yet written up)
• Apple butter days in Holmes County (see HarvestFood)

If you have recordings, write up a summary as its own page and link it here.