Oral Histories
by
Mike Geselowitz
"Simply put, oral history collects
spoken memories and personal commentaries of historical
significance through recorded interviews."
— Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral
History, 1995
In 2000, the Library of Congress
began the Veterans History project, urging citizens to
participate in preserving the personal recollections of U.S
veterans for the enrichment of future generations. The Library
of Congress program is based in part on a state-wide program
begun in New Jersey in 1994 by the History Center's partner, the
Rutgers University History Department. For more than 25 years,
however, the IEEE History Center has been collecting such
recollections from the engineers and scientists in IEEE-related
fields who, through their efforts, helped to build our modern
technological society during the course of the 20th century.
Oral history interviews are primary
source material for historians, journalists and writers seeking
to understand the past. They can fill in holes not available in
the written record. For example, how many important ideas were
developed, not during formal presentations at IEEE conferences,
but at social opportunities between paper sessions? Such moments
of insight may not be captured in conference proceedings,
journal articles, monographs or patent applications. Oral
histories preserve important lessons about the innovative
process, as well as details of the inspiring lives of inventors
and entrepreneurs.
The IEEE holds more than 450 oral
history interviews of prominent technologists, with more than half of
these available as transcripts on the Web. The interviews have
largely been collected by History
Center staff and other technology historians, who have training and
understanding in both technology and in oral history. However, last year,
the History Center began a pilot program in the IEEE UKRI Section to train IEEE volunteers — who already have
technical know-how and key contacts — to interview their fellow
engineers. Early indications are that this successful innovation
will enable the IEEE's oral history collection to grow even
richer and more important.
For more information on the IEEE
oral history program, see
www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/oral_history/oral_history.html.
Since there is such an overlap
between the engineers who built the 20th century, and the
veterans who defended America's freedom during that time,
interested readers may also want to take a look at the Rutgers
program (http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu/)
or the Library of Congress' program (http://www.loc.gov/vets/).
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