Oral History from Classical Greece to the New Deal and Further
Early Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides are sometime called the first oral historians. They used statements in their writings by participants and other eye-witnesses to events, including wars among Greek city-states and against the Persians during the 5th century B.C.
Herodotus
traveled widely over many years to obtain information on the sprawling Persian Empire in order to describe its diverse geography, social structures, political evolution, and other important developments. His objective in preparing the History was to explain the contrast between the invading Persians and the Greek city states which shared a common language, religion, and customs. Questions arise whether Herodotus practiced oral history or employed storytelling that amounted to conveying oral tradition to please his audience.
Oral tradition provided much of the information passed down through the centuries until written sources began to dominate during the European late high Medieval Period (8th through 13th centuries). Many of the traditions and customs and historical knowledge of families and groups were conveyed orally as a matter of routine, and still are. Whether preserved as oral history or oral tradition, however, either can offer a vital piece of knowledge about the past.
Thucydides was an Athenian general and historian who claimed to be impartial and objective in using evidence to write his History of the Peloponnesian War—three decades of conflict between leagues of city-states allied with either Athens or Sparta. He searched for empirical explanations of cause and effect rather than attributing outcomes of events to interventions of the deities. This analysis of human interactions has led to crediting Thucydides as being the father of scientific history.
In the United States, the New Deal Federal Writers Project during 1930s and early 1940s recorded thousands of everyday life histories. The FWP serves as only one example of what has developed into common practice of accumulating transcribed notes and audio or video recordings covering a broad spectrum of society. Professor Allan Nevins at Columbia University is given credit for initiating the first systematic and disciplined academic oral history program in the 1940s. Many others followed.
Oral history experienced a spur to wider usage during the mid-1960s when cassette tape recorders became more easily available. Visionary historians in the United States began tape-recording interviews more routinely; acquiring this skill set became part of professional training for historians who studied events where observers or participants survived.
The largest and most comprehensive effort to collect memories of U.S. military service began in 2000 under the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center. Participation is relatively simple for anyone who follows the guidelines available online.