IN THEIR OWN VOICES
DAN SEARS ’74
Hall: “I think
other programs
are beginning to
be more like
ours.”
The SOHP’s
who worked in the program as students
are or were college faculty.
gift is outreach
and the
preservation
of thousands
of voices;
its backbone
“The oral history program has been
critical to our success in graduate education, especially in history but in other programs as well,” Jim Leloudis said. “The
extraordinary thing Jacquelyn did there
was she created a remarkable culture of
shared enterprise. She approached her grad
students as peers.”
is teaching. Some
35 people who
worked
in the program
sustenance. Having escaped cramped quarters in Hamilton Hall for the elegantly
restored Love House on East Franklin, the
SOHP now works alongside the staff of
the Center for the Study of the American
South. Will it remain important enough
to release a faculty position to direct it?
Will the nine-page list of its alumni, scattered among history faculties, museums
and research institutes across the country,
continue to grow, or will money for graduate research assistance decline? With the
growing imperative to capture interviews
on video as well as audio, will technology
costs be a problem?
as students
Of SOHP’s standing in its craft, Hall
seems deeply satisfied.
are or were
college faculty.
Throughout her tenure Hall has taught
a seminar on oral history to a mix of
undergraduates and graduate students. In
the 2008 interview she said: “At its best, I
think the SOHP has created an environment where students could resist some of
the competitive, narrowing pressures of
graduate training, bond with one another
and hold on to ideals of collaboration and
civic engagement. … Those seminars have
been the seedbeds for some of our best
projects, and they’ve produced some of
our best fieldworkers.”
“I think other programs are beginning
to be more like ours.”
DAVID R. BROWN ’75 is the Review’s senior associate editor.
Not even after leaving as director did
Hall stop worrying about the program’s
ONLINE: Search the SOHP’s database
of interviews from sohp.unc.edu.
ILLUSTRATION PHOTO
CREDITS FOR COVER AND
PAGES 28 AND 29: NORTH
CAROLINA COLLECTION;
SOUTHERN CULTURES;
THE PHOTOGRAPHY
COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY
OF MARYLAND,
BALTIMORE COUNTY;
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND
RECORDS SERVICE;
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF
AMERICAN HISTORY.
EDWIN CALDWELL SR.
AND JR., COURTESY OF
SOUTHERN CULTURES AND
THE CALDWELL FAMILY;
SEPTIMA CLARK, COURTESY OF AVERY RESEARCH
CENTER FOR AFRICAN
AMERICAN HISTORY AND
CULTURE, SEPTIMA
POINSETTE CLARK
SCRAPBOOK 1919-1983;
VIRGINIA FOSTER DURR,
COURTESY OF
BIRMINGHAM PUBLIC
LIBRARY; HELEN LEWIS,
COURTESY OF HELEN
LEWIS.
40
January/February 2012
