Every Person Their Own Historian: A Quick Lesson on Doing Oral History

All people tell their stories their own way and recording people’s memories can be extraordinary, an inspiring way to look into the past. This presentation will give people the nitty-gritty skills to do oral history. It will help people envision oral history projects they could do, give sample questions and explain some of the ins and outs of doing good oral history work. All participants will receive examples of oral history release forms, sample questions, and ideas for doing oral history.

Mary Logan Rothschild, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita at Arizona State University, where she helped found the Women’s Studies Program and taught American History and Women’s Studies. She enjoys working with public school teachers to include women’s and oral history in their classrooms and she loves traveling the state of Arizona talking to community groups about History and Women’s Studies. During her tenure at ASU in the Departments of History and Women’s Studies, she won several teaching and mentoring awards. She was the Arizona Humanities Scholar of the Year in 1991.