Research Guides: Oral History Resources: Oral History (U.S.)

Sources: A Selection

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers Project
This resource includes 2,900 transcripts of life histories based on interviews done between 1936 and 1940 as part of the Federal Writers Project. Audio not available.
Chicago Collections Consortium: Explore Chicago Collections
Portal to local area collections about the history and culture of the Chicago region. Search for "oral histories" to see the array of collections.
Columbia Center for Oral History
The Columbia Center for Oral History (CCOH) was founded by historian and journalist Allan Nevins in 1948 and is credited with launching the establishment of oral history archives internationally. At over 10,000 interviews, the CCOH Archives is one of the largest oral history collections in the United States. The Columbia Center for Oral History Archives is housed at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library in Butler Library and is open to all.

HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
History Makers is the largest African American oral video history archive in the world. Provides access to over 61,221 stories from oral history interviews with 1,195 historically significant African Americans are currently available.

Korean-American Digital Archive
Includes 180 sound files that include interviews documenting the Korean American experience in the 20th century. This collection also includes photographs and other documents.
New York Public Libray Community Oral History Project
Provides online access to hundreds of interviews documenting specific neighborhoods and areas within New York City.
Oral Histories from the Library of Congress
Numerous oral history projects including Olympic History, Presidential Oral History, and much more.
Oral History Project in Labor History (Roosevelt University)
Transcripts of oral history interviews with Roosevelt founders and labor movement leaders entitled: "Oral History Project in Labor History".
Ralph J. Bunche Oral Histories Collection on the Civil Rights Movement
The Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection from the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center is a unique resource for the study of the era of the American civil rights movement. Included here are transcriptions of close to 700 interviews with those who made history in the struggles for voting rights, against discrimination in housing, for the desegregation of the schools, to expose racism in hiring, in defiance of police brutality, and to address poverty in the African American communities.
Rutgers Oral History Archives
This resource provides transcripts of oral history interviews with New Jersey or Rutgers alumni who service in the armed forces since and including World War II as well as people with a story about New Jersey’s history and people involved with the history of Rutgers University. Can search as well as browse these interviews.

Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974 This link opens in a new window
https://search.alexanderstreet.com/browse/sixt-title

A searchable database of 1960s diaries, letters, autobiographies, and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. Subjects covered in this resource encompass arts, music, leisure, Civil Rights, counter-culture, law, government, mass media, New Left and the emerging neo-conservative movement, student activism, Vietnam War, women's movement, etc.

The Sixties in Video contains fifty hours of primary footage and secondary documentaries that explore the key events of the sixties and early seventies, including the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement and the sexual revolution. It features interviews with major players of the decade, including political leaders John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Richard Nixon, and revolutionaries such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, and Elaine Brown.

Southern Oral History Archive
Provides online access to audio of interviews with a variety of individuals who have lived in the US South. This resource also includes the transcripts of interviews and allows you to browse to specific occupations, and ethnicity or search by keyword.
StoryCorps
Veterans History Project (Library of Congress)
Produced by the American Folklife Center thiws resource collects and makes available personal accounts of U.S. war veterans. Not all of the interviews are online but some have transcripts, audio, and video files. You can search this collection or browse to records for interviews.
Yale-UN Oral History Project
This resource contains transcribed interviews with key players, including United Nations officials and ambassadors from various countries, in major international events in the second half of the 20th century.
The Oral History Project of The Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive
A project, started in 1999, of the Vietnam Center and the Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University. The project's mission "...is to create and preserve a more complete record of the wars in Southeast Asia by preserving, through recorded interviews, the recollections and experiences of all who were involved in those wars."