Oral History - guide to resources: 1930-1939 (A-M)

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

ATS Remembered is a private research project that records the history of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British army from 1938 to 1949. The memories and service details of a range of former members of the ATS are available to access online, including those who served as cooks, drivers, gunners, military police and wireless operators.

Topics: People; War & Conflict; Work

Keywords: military; women; WWII

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

This website provides online access to full written transcripts and audio extracts from 29 oral history interviews conducted with Bolton people about their memories of life in the town during the Second World War. The focus of the interviews is on the Home Front, but they also document some of the stories of those who were in Bolton for the beginning of the war and later joined the Services.

Topics: War & Conflict

Keywords: childhood; naval history; POW; RAF; women; WWII

This programme was established in 1995 to record the memories of former British diplomats or other officials who played a significant role in international relations. The collected transcripts of the oral interviews, which were themselves conducted by former diplomats or their wives, provide details and insights into the daily workings of diplomacy and Whitehall. Over 130 interview transcripts are available to download from the website. The original collection is held at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge and a searchable indexed catalogue of the transcripts is available through Cambridge’s Janus webserver.

Topics: Politics & Government

Keywords: diplomacy; foreign policy; government; international relations

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

This site contains a number of short reminiscences from individuals who volunteered with the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance during the Second World War. The memories are arranged under six themed headings: Air raids, Fundraising, Voluntary Aid Detachments, Welfare work, Wounded & Missing and POWs, Youth and Cadets.

Topics: Science & Medicine; War & Conflict

Keywords: medicine; nursing; POW; WWII

Undergraduates at Aberystwyth University have been interviewing the people of Ceredigion about life and work in the county during the twentieth century as part of a project organised by the Centre for Historiography and Historical Cultures in the Department of History and Welsh History. The project aims to create a lasting record of the community, culture and language of Ceredigion and also forge links between the University and local community.

This link searches the National Library of Wales holdings for works on "Oral history -- Wales -- Ceredigion"

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: community; language; POW; tourism; WWII

Epping Forest District Museum conducted a series of oral history interviews about everyday life and work in the district. The collection also includes memories of historic events, such as the Second World War. Four audio clips on the themes of farming, housing, industry and transport are available online. The entire collection is accessible by appointment at the Museum.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: agriculture; childhood; housing; industry; WWII

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

This project aimed to explore changing financial management practices in working class homes within the city of Belfast. A series of oral history interviews recorded individual experiences of credit, debt and money management. The interviews adopted a life history approach, which enables the gender, generation, neighbourhood, occupation, income and religion of individual respondents to be considered alongside their personal and familial experiences of financial decision-making. The transcripts of 26 interviews, including two with licensed money lenders, are available online through the UK Data Service. Researchers must first sign into the UK Data Service using their institutional login and state their intended use of any material accessed.

Topics: People

Keywords: community; family; finance; gender; religion

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

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

This project, based at the Institute of Historical Research from 2009-2011, aimed to create a ‘history of school history’ from 1900 to the present day. The project explored both curriculum changes and their impact at ground level in English state schools. At the centre of the project was a series of 68 oral history interviews conducted with former secretaries of state, school inspectors, teacher trainers, former members of the History Working Group which devised the first National Curriculum, textbook writers, teachers and pupils. Some of the interviews were conducted in pairs or groups and the total number of interviewees was 80. The complete recorded interviews and associated transcripts are available to search and download from the website, along with other data collected in the course of the project.

Topics: Education

Keywords: government

This oral history project established in 2006 recorded the stories and experiences of people from all over the world who came to settle in Reading. 22 interview transcripts are available to read online and extracts from the interviews can also be searched by selected themes, including Childhood, Children’s Identity, Community, Economic Situation, Education & Training, Family Values, Food, Jobs, Old Reading, Political Situation, Racism, Self Sufficiency, and Where Home Is.

Topics: People

Keywords: childhood; community; education; family; migration; race; refugees; work

[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

This project sought to produce a lasting record of the historic jobbing system, which first developed during the nineteenth-century and came to an end with the ‘Big Bang’ of October 1986. Firms of jobbers left few, if any, records of their affairs. The Centre for Metropolitan History has thus compiled an archive of 32 interviews with former jobbers, and a smaller number with brokers and financial journalists so as to provide a different perspective on the jobbing system. Summaries of all 42 interviews, and full transcripts and audio recordings for 32 interviews are available online. The ten interviews not available online may be consulted, by arrangement, at the Centre for Metropolitan History.

Topics: Work

Keywords: business history; finance

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

In 2007 Kiveton Park and Wales History Society interviewed residents about their lives and experiences in the area. Audio extracts from 12 interviews are available to listen to online. Many of these relate to coal mining.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: childhood; education; football; mining; industry; sport; union; WWII

The Listening Project is an ongoing project run in partnership by the BBC and the British Library. The project has requested people from across the country to submit an audio recording of a short, meaningful conversation held between two individuals. The recordings are being broadcast across BBC radio and archived by the British Library. A significant number, currently over 300, are also available to listen to through the BBC Radio 4 website. The conversations cover a wide range of topics including education, family, health, religion and war.

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

Keywords: education; family; healthcare; religion; sexuality; sport

This database of the digitised Mass Observation archive is available to University members. As well as providing online access to top level file reports produced by Mass Observation from 1937 to 1972, this resource also provides access to the raw data used to produce them for a series of topic collections, including Juvenile Delinquency; Korea, 1950; and Radio Listening, 1939-1948. This raw material consists of interviews as well as questionnaires, observations and ephemera. To access this resource from outside the Oxford University network, follow the link through SOLO.

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

Keywords: cinema; family; music; politics; radio; television

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

This website provides online access to ten extracts from oral history interviews recorded between 2001 and 2008 about life and work on Dartmoor. The complete recordings have been fully transcribed and archived in full onto CDs, which can be listened to at the Dartmoor National Park Authority’s High Moorland Visitor Centre in Princetown, and various other information centres, museums and libraries throughout Dartmoor. They are also available for sale through the website’s online shop.

Topics: People; Work

Keywords: agriculture; community; housing; industry; tourism; WWII

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