HIST 4425/01 (Oral
History)
Fall
2007
Instructor: Dr. Thomas A.
Scott
An Oral
History of Aircraft Manufacturing in Metropolitan
Atlanta
Office
Hours: Tu-Th-Fri, 10-11, after class, or by
appointment
Phone:
770-423-6254 (office); 404-421-8319 (cell)
FAX:
770-423-6432
e-mail:
tscott@kennesaw.edu
Website:
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~tscott/
Required Book: Yow, Valerie Raleigh. Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social
Sciences, 2d ed.
Class Project: This semester the class will attempt to
document the history of airplane building in the
Testing and
Grading:
Quizzes over readings
25 percent
total
5 Oral History Interviews
25 percent
total
Rough draft &
Bibliography
15 percent
Term Paper
30 percent
Presentation
5
percent
Quizzes (25%) There will be a quiz each
time we have a reading assignment.
A typical quiz will consist of 10 or 12 questions that can be answered in
a sentence or two each. Any time it
is necessary for you to miss a class, please call or send me an e-mail, before
class if possible.
Oral History Interviews
(25%) Each student will do about 5
hours of oral history interviews—a minimum of (5) interviews with 5
individuals. Each of you will have
a specific topic on the history of the aircraft industry in the
Rough Draft and Bibliography
(15%) Turn in at least five pages
of your paper along with an annotated bibliography. I will make corrections and return them
to you as quickly as possible.
Term Paper
(30%) You will be expected to write a paper of
about 15 pages, using your oral histories as primary sources and also making use
of the other sources you listed in your bibliography.
Class Presentation (5%) We will devote the last
class to a discussion of the term papers that the class has produced. Each of you will be given about ten
minutes to discuss your conclusions and what you learned from doing your
interviews.
Course
Description:
HIST 4425 focuses on the
methods of taking, processing, and utilizing oral histories, as well as on the
planning, development, and operation of oral history projects for libraries,
museums, corporations, and public history agencies. Because the course requires field work,
students will be expected to conduct their interviews outside the normal class
period. Students are expected to
schedule interviews and provide their own transportation to the interview
site.
Course
Objectives:
Students who successfully
complete this course will
Develop the skills to
conduct an oral history interview.
Develop the skills to
oversee and organize a coherent oral history project for a public history
agency, corporation, library, or university.
Develop analytical, writing,
and verbal skills through using the oral histories as the basis of a term paper
and then discussing your work with the class.
Tapes and transcripts will
be donated to the
History and Oral
History:
“History is not ‘what
happened in the past’; rather, it is the act of selecting, analyzing, and writing
about the past. It is something
that is done, that is constructed, rather than an inert body of data that lies
scattered through the archives.”
“For better or worse,
historians inescapably leave an imprint as they go about their business: asking interesting questions about
apparently dull facts, seeing connections between subjects that had not seemed
related before, shifting and rearranging evidence until it assumes a coherent
pattern. The past is not history;
only the raw material of it.”
James West Davidson and Mark
Hamilton Lytle, After the Fact:
the Art of Historical Detection, 5th ed.
(
“History is a special kind
of thinking. It involves telling a
story, and while facts are essential in telling a story they are not
enough. You can have a big, bad
wolf, a little girl named Red Riding Hood, an old grandmother, a basket of
cakes, and a dark woods without having a story. You can even know the date of the wolf’s
birth, the color of Red Riding Hood’s hair, and the mailing address of the
grandmother as well as her Social Security number, and still not have a
story.”
“Whatever its subject, the
study of history is an unending detective story. Historians try to solve mysteries in the
evidence and to tell a story that will give order to the confusion of data we
inherit from the past. Historians
make connections, assign causes, trace defects, make comparisons, uncover
patterns, locate dead ends, and find influences that continue through the
generations until the present.”
Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History, 3d ed.
(New York: Longman, 1999), 1, 11
“Memory is the core of oral
history, from which meaning can be extracted and preserved. Simply put, oral history collects
memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded
interviews.”
Donald A. Ritchie, Doing
Oral History: A Practical
Guide, 2d ed.
(
“The greatest advantage of
oral over written documents is that the historian actively participates, as
interviewer, in creating the oral document, and therefore he can try to get the
information he needs. This active
role for the historian can also be a great disadvantage, because if he does not
guard against his biases, he may consciously or unconsciously fabricate the
document and make it say what he wants it to say.”
James Hoopes, Oral History: An Introduction for Students (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1979), 12.
Daily Class
Schedule:
August 17 – Introduction to course and
discussion of class project on the history of aircraft manufacturing in
metropolitan
August 24 - Read Yow,
Chap. 1, “Introduction to the In-Depth Interview.” Also read Holland, Under One Roof, Chap. 1, “Bell Bomber
Plant Brings a ‘Torrent of Change’ (1942-1946)” and the “Bell Bomber” entry in
the New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/
. Quiz 1 over today’s
readings. Class will be held today at
the
August 31 – Read Yow, Chap. 2, “Oral
History & Memory” and
September 7 – Read
Yow, Chap. 3, “Preparation for the Interviewing Project.” Also read
September 14 – Read
Yow, Chap. 4, “Interviewing Techniques” and
You may start doing interviews
as soon as we give you a list of interviewees and as soon as you feel
ready. You can check out tape
recorders, microphones, and tapes from me.
Interviews should be completed between now and the end of October.
September 21 – Read
Yow, Chap. 5, “Legalities & Ethics” and
September
28 – Read Yow, Chap. 6,
“Interpersonal Relations in the Interview.” Quiz 6.
October 5 – Read Yow, Chap. 7, “Varieties of
Oral History Projects: Community
Studies.” Quiz 7.
October 11 - Last day to
withdraw without academic penalty.
October 12 – Read Yow, Chap. 8, “Varieties of
Oral History Projects: Biography.”
Quiz 8.
October
19
– Read Yow,
Chap. 9, “Varieties of Oral History Projects: Family Research.” Quiz 9.
October 26 – Read Yow, Chap. 10,
“Analysis and Interpretation.” Quiz
10.
November 2 – Read Yow, Chap.
11, “Conclusion of the Project.”
Quiz 11.
November 9 –
No class. Work on your paper.
November 16
–
No class, but please submit by today by WebCT mail at
least five pages of your paper with
footnotes in proper style at the bottom of the page and an annotated bibliography at the
end. The bibliography should
contain all works you have consulted where you cite them or
not.
November 23 – No class—Thanksgiving
(Fall) break.
November 30
–
Presentations. Your presentation should
last about 10 minutes. You will be
expected to talk about your interviews and what you learned from them, and the
major conclusions of your term paper.
December 7 – Final papers are due. As soon as I have the papers graded, I will notify you by WebCT mail.