Oral History - guide to resources: 1920-1929

Ambleside Oral History Group has been conducting oral history interviews since 1976 on a broad range of subjects relating to life in Ambleside and the Lake District area. They maintain an expanding archive, currently numbering over 450 interviews. The interview transcripts for the entire archive are available online and are fully searchable by keyword, or browsable by topic. Access to the online transcripts and search facility must be requested using the registration page on the website. The audio recordings themselves are not available online and only accessible by prior appointment at Ambleside Public Library.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: agriculture; childhood; community; education; leisure; WWI; WWII

The complete audio recordings of over 200 life story interviews with 20th century British artists have been made available online through British Library Sounds. The interviewees include architects, painters, sculptors, designers and photographers.

Topics: Arts & Culture

Keywords: architecture; art; art history; photography

From the late 1980s BECTU (Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union) has been interviewing veterans employed within the British film and related industries. Many of the over 500 interviews conducted so far are available to listen to at the BFI Library on application. Approximately 60 of these interviews are also accessible online. E-mail Keith Johnston or Melanie Williams to apply for a username and password to access the online interviews. Requests for access from all e-mails ending in ac.uk will be granted automatically.

Topics: Arts & Culture; Work

Keywords: engineering; film; theatre; union

British Library Sounds provides online access to a selection of the British Library's extensive collections of sound recordings, including oral history resources on a wide range of subjects. The recordings are arranged by subject area and are keyword searchable.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore; Arts & Culture; Education; People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: portal

This website contains written extracts from oral history interviews with British individuals regarding their experiences and reflections of British colonialism in India before Independence in 1947. The focus of the interviews is particularly on the social and cultural aspects of British life in India and with intercultural influences.

Topics: Arts & Culture; People

Keywords: colonialism; migration; race

Calum Iain Maclean was a Scottish folklorist, collector, ethnographer and author. A selection of transcriptions and English summaries of Scottish Gaelic folk tales, songs and autobiographical details recorded by Maclean have been made accessible through this online database. The database is searchable by title, location, name of reciter, recording date, classification and keyword. The database is password protected and researchers must apply directly through the site for access. Maclean’s entire collections are held between the National Folklore Archive, University College Dublin and the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore

Keywords: ethnology; folktales; Gaelic; songs; stories

The Coal Mining Oral History Project set out to record the memories of miners and mining families in County Durham. The aim of the project was to both preserve knowledge about the disappearing working practices and tools used within the industry, whilst also capturing the dialects and terminology of mining communities. Short extracts from 32 of the 35 interviews originally conducted are accessible online.

Topics: Work

Keywords: mining; family; industry; union

Was at http://www.diabetes-stories.com/index.asp
This project conducted 100 oral history interviews with individuals with diabetes, members of their families, and healthcare professionals. The interviews record experiences of life with diabetes dating back to the 1920s, including information on changing treatments and the impact of diabetes on individual life history and identity. This resource provides online access to unedited audio recordings, short audio extracts, written summaries and full transcripts. The interviews are either browsable by section (People with Diabetes; Family Members; Healthcare Professionals) and within this by decade and topic, or are searchable by keyword, phrase or subject.

Topics: Science & Medicine

Keywords: family; healthcare; medicine

This British Academy project aimed to identify variation and changes in the East Midlands dialect which have taken place over the last century. It examined a number of recently recorded oral history interviews and compared them with those conducted in the latter half of the last century. Between six and eight speakers were selected as a representative sample for both male/female, younger/older and urban/rural speakers from each of four East Midlands counties: Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. Audio extracts from each of the interviews, many of them collected specifically for this project, are available to listen to online. The accompanying linguistic notes for each extract are also available to read online. These made note of any particularly interesting features of non-standard pronunciation (phonology), grammar and lexis (region-specific dialect words).

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore

Keywords: childhood; community; language

The complete oral recordings and transcripts of 98 interviews that chart the experiences of disabled people have been made freely available through British Library Sounds. The interviews are listed under four sub-headed sections which relate to the particular disability or theme discussed: Cerebral Palsy (31), Disability Athletics (2), Hearing Loss (64) and Polio (1). The entry for polio is a self-recorded reminiscence but the other three sets of recordings are the result of organised oral history projects conducted by the British Library: ‘Speaking for ourselves: an oral history of people with cerebral palsy’ (conducted in partnership with Scope), 'An Oral History of British Athletics', and 'Unheard Voices: Interviews With Deafened People' (conducted in partnership with Hearing Link).

Topics: People; Science & Medicine

Keywords: disability; healthcare; medicine; sport

British Library Sounds has made a large number of early spoken word recordings available online. They are arranged by decade and alphabetically by name. Many of these recordings are not oral history.

Topics: Arts & Culture; Politics & Government

Keywords: language; literature; monarchy; politics; sport; theatre

This archive hold the audio and transcript collections for three oral history projects conducted by Elizabeth Roberts during the 1970s and 1980s on the social and family life of Barrow, Lancaster and Preston from 1890 to 1970. Sets of transcript extracts from the interviews are available to read online on five different subjects: The Lancashire Way of Death, Health, Childbirth, Neighbours, and Working Class Marriage 1890-1940. The subject indexes for the archival interview collections are also available to download from the website.

Topics: People

Keywords: community, death; family

The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) Qualidata provides online access to the data collections of a number of oral history projects, including interview transcripts. Researchers need to register and state their intended purpose for any data accessed. The collections are keyword searchable. Their introduction to Oral History resources provides links to key oral history project data deposited with ESDS and also to other key national resources for oral history.

ESDS Qualidata has recently been taken over by the UK Data Service but much of the website content remains accessible.

Topics: Education; People; Politics & Government; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: portal

The Exmoor Oral History Archive holds the complete audio recordings of 78 life story interviews conducted with a wide variety of individuals who have lived and worked on the moor. The website is intended as an introduction to this collection, which is housed at the Somerset Heritage Centre. Short audio extracts from each of the interviews are available online, and are searchable by person, place or via a thematic index.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: agriculture; childhood; community; education

Also known as ‘100 families’, this project examined the connections between family life and social mobility by means of in-depth life story interviews, where possible with different generations of the same family. The collection consists of 170 complete interview transcripts. The transcripts have been anonymised and fully digitised. They are available to download in searchable Word and RTF formats. It is further possible to carry out keyword searches of all the transcripts and also to filter search results by sex, year of birth, geographical region and occupational class on the ESDS website. In order to download the interviews it is first necessary to sign into the UK Data Service, using your institutional login, and state your intended use of any data accessed.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: childhood; education; family; leisure, politics

Foundling Voices, established in 2008, has recorded 78 life story interviews with individuals who grew up in the care of the Foundling Hospital during the first half of the twentieth century. The project website provides access to audio extracts from the interviews. London Metropolitan archives hold the complete audio recordings and transcripts of the interviews.

Topics: Education; People

Keywords: childhood; education; family; school

This oral history project was commissioned to commemorate the 125th Anniversary of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Oral history interviews were conducted with Irish people about their experiences of the GAA and its impact on their lives. A number of these interviews are available to read on the project website.

Topic: Arts & Culture; People

Keywords: family; migration; religion; sport; women

TUC History Online has provided online access to four audio clips from an interview with an East End striker during the 1926 General Strike. More audio clips are due to be added to the website over the coming year.

Topics: Politics & Government; Work

Keywords: union

Recordings of interviews and songs made by oral history pioneer George Ewart Evans are now available for anyone to listen to online through British Library Sounds. The recordings were produced from 1956 and 1977 and were primarily made in Suffolk, with a smaller number also made in Wales, Ireland and Scotland. They document rural life, agricultural work, folk beliefs about animals, medicine and witchcraft, and songs. 254 recorded items and available in total, which include approximately 140 interviews with individuals.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore; Work

Keywords: agriculture; medicine; music; songs; witchcraft

This website provides access to transcriptions of interviews conducted with elderly residents of the Glens abut their early memories of the area.

Topics: Anthropology & Culture; Arts & Culture; Education; People; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: agriculture; childhood; community; sport; WWI; WWII

This website provides links to a number of community oral history projects recording life in the East End of London. Several of these have online access to audio files or transcripts of interviews conducted in the course of the projects.

Topics: People; Politics & Government; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: community

[no longer freely available.] In the First Person is an in-depth index of thousands of collections of English language personal narratives from around the world. Along with diary entries and letters, the index contains approximately 17,00 entries for oral history. The index is searchable by keyword.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore; Arts & Culture; Education; People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: portal

Between 2004 and 2008, King’s Cross Voices captured the memories and experiences of a large variety of men and women who lived, worked and studied in King’s Cross before its physical landscape and communities became transformed by the redevelopment of the area. Oral history interviews were collected with those who worked in the railway industry, as well as with students, teachers, shopkeepers, market traders, police officers, artists, office workers, campaigners, squatters, politicians, prostitutes, factory workers, builders and many more. Written extracts from nine of the interviews are available to read online, as is an audio sound trail of Argyle Square in the King’s Cross area, which includes audio extracts from the original interviews. The recordings and transcripts are archived at Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre and are available to access in full on public computers in all Camden Libraries.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: community

The Millenium Memory Bank (MMB) represents one of the largest single oral history collections in Europe. From 1998 to 1999, BBC local radio stations interviewed a total of 640 individuals from around the UK about their local, everyday experiences. These formed the basis for a series of radio programmes entitled The Century Speaks. Interviewees ranged in age from five to 107 years olds and were drawn from a variety of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. British Library Sounds has made 395 audio extracts from these interviews available for anyone to listen to online. Each audio extract is accompanied by a linguistic description of the item. The interviews are geographically browsable by county and within this by town.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: agriculture; community; environment; family; language; work

Amongst other sources related to the history of the area, this website provides online access to approximately 150 complete audio recordings held by the East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA). The interviews primarily relate to life in Leicestershire from the turn of the century to the 1930s and cover a wide variety of topics from WWI to influenza, education and work. A number of recordings also relate to the interviewees experiences abroad, particularly in India. The interviews are all summarised and categorised and available to search by keyword.

Topics: Arts & Culture; Education; People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: agriculture; community; engineering; family; religion; WW1

The National Folklore collection consists of thousands of hours of audio recordings of Irish folklore, folk narrative, music, song, custom, belief and oral history. A number of short audio recordings have been made available to listen to online.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore

Keywords: customs; folktales; music; songs

Extensive summaries of a number of oral history interviews from the British Library Sound Archive’s ‘Leaders of National Life’ Collection are available through their online catalogue (catalogue reference number: C408) The collection covers politics, industry, the arts, sports, religion, the professions, administration and communications. The audio recordings of these interviews, along with many more items from the British Library’s National Life Stories collections, are available to listen to in full at the British Library, St Pancras.

Topics: Arts & Culture; Politics & Government; Work

Keywords: industry; politics; religion; sports

The complete recordings of 107 oral history interviews with individuals involved in the UK jazz scene are available to listen to through British Library Sounds. The online recordings are only accessible to Higher and Further Education institutions.

Topics: Arts & Culture

Keywords: music

This archive consists of over 500 recordings of Somerset Life made since the 1970s by local historian Ann Heeley and a variety of other individuals and local history groups. A short audio clip from each recording is available to download from the website. The complete recordings are available to listen to at the Somerset Heritage Centre in Taunton or the Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore; People; Work

Keywords: agriculture; community; WWI; WWII

This resource provides online access to large portions of oral history and other sound recordings held by The Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge. The list of interviews is arranged alphabetically by interviewee name. The interview transcripts have also been indexed making them keyword searchable. The collection of interviews, captured in India, the U.K. and the USA, is very wide ranging and includes details of the lives and careers of members of the British Army based in India. A small collection of recordings of music and unusual languages is also accessible online.

Topics: Arts & Culture; People; Politics & Government; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: colonialism; education; industry; journalism; language; missionary; music; politics; women

The complete audio recordings of 61 oral history interviews with twentieth-century British sportsmen and women are available for anyone to listen to online through British Library Sounds. The collection includes interviews with tennis players, swimmers, and athletes, as well as with individuals involved in the coaching and teaching of sport.

Topics: Arts & Culture

Keywords: sport

Tocher (meaning a dowry in Scots) provides online access to some of the School of Scottish Studies’ collections of oral tradition. The site provides access to transcriptions rather than audio recordings. These are divided into categories according to type, including Features, Culture and Customs, Beliefs and Superstitions, Legends and Folktales, Tales (non-fiction), and songs.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore

Keywords: childhood; community; folktales; songs; stories; work

The UK Data Service provides online access to a wide range of qualitative data sets, including oral history resources. The collections are searchable by keyword. Researchers must register with the UK Data Service and state their intended purpose for any data accessed.

Topics: Education; People; Politics & Government; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: portal

The Aberdeen University Oral History Archive was initially created in 1985 to help historians writing monographs to commemorate the University’s Quincentenary in 1995. Interviewing has continued ever since and over 200 interviews have now been collected with past students, long serving members of staff, and eminent individuals connected with the University. Access to the complete set of recordings is available at the University, but many of the interview transcripts are also accessible online through the University’s archival catalogue.

Topics: Education

Keywords: education; law; music; medicine; students; university; WWI; WWII

This project, funded by the University of Huddersfield, has recorded oral reminiscences relating to the Rugby League community in West Yorkshire. Audio extracts from 26 interviews with players, officials and spectators of Rugby League are available to listen to online. The website also makes accessible online a number of oral history interviews conducted as part of the ‘Black and Minority Ethnic Involvement in Rugby League Project’. This project saw pupils at the Huddersfield Giant Study Centre interview Huddersfield Giants players and staff from black and minority ethnic backgrounds about their lives and rugby league careers.

Topics: Arts & Culture; People

Keywords: rugby; sport

The Wild Rose Heritage and Arts community group, based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, first began by interviewing elderly residents about their experiences growing up in the local valleys. Since then the project has expanded and oral history interviews have been conducted with residents of all ages to explore how people are changed by the places in which they live and work. The complete audio recordings and transcripts of approximately 130 interviews are currently available to access through the site.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: agriculture; childhood; community; WWII

This project recorded the memories of individuals involved in work and industry in the area of Nuneaton and Bedworth during the 20th century. The audio files, and summaries or written transcripts, of over 25 interviews are available to access online. It is possible to search the interviews by keyword.

Topics: Work

Keywords: engineering, industry; mining; union; WWII

YouTube provides access to a large quantity of resources, both oral history interviews and information videos on the conduct and practice of oral history. Some organisations, archives and oral history projects have their own YouTube channels.

Topics: Anthropology & Folklore; Arts & Culture; Education; People; Politics & Government; Science & Medicine; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: portal