November 9, 2005
Workshop records history
Women's History Project offers tips on documenting lives
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
"Your name has been suggested…"
Seven area women learned what to say and how to listen Thursday evening during an oral history workshop sponsored by the Women's History Project of Northwest Michigan. As part of the group's ongoing effort to formally preserve and document local women's history, the session described how to work with a prospective interviewee from the first phone call through completing the taped interview.
Held Thursday at the Grand Traverse Heritage Center, each attendee also conducted a 15-minute mock interview during the two-hour training session. Each participant also was interviewed for 15 minutes to find out what it is like to be on the other side of the microphone.
"The interviews will be in our archives and we hope that our children will be using them to gain information on how people lived in another generation," said Nancy Doughty, president of the Women's History Project.
Kathy Lienau came to the session initially to learn interview techniques she could apply to capturing her own family history. She left convinced that adding a women's perspective to the recorded archives of Traverse City history is a wonderful idea.
"Until they've done this, the archives have mostly been men, like the veterans and everything; it just happened that way," said Lienau. "Women have a totally different viewpoint of things than the men do. I thought it was a really good idea."
Weighing in from a younger generation, Dana Boomer of Empire is a history buff and Northwestern Michigan College student studying business administration and accounting. She connected with the Women's History Project while doing research for a school project and was intrigued by the organization's mission. She attended this fall's annual meeting and the group gave her a scholarship to attend the training session.
"I would love to help," she said of the ongoing oral history project.
Specific interview techniques were detailed, mainly drilling home that the process is not a conversation or social time. The interviewer has a script and list of questions to follow and should work methodically through them. Once the tape starts turning, the interviewer was told to keep her own thoughts, opinions, stories and ideas out of it.
"When you hear something about a story or experience that is something in your family, it's very seductive to want to share your story," said Doughty. "But it's not the time or place to talk about yourself."
Since 2002, the oral history project has completed more than 40 interviews with area women. Trained volunteers complete the taped interviews and gather, copy and return any photographs or documents that flesh out a story. Interview subjects receive a copy of the tape while two additional copies are kept for the archives. The original and one of the copies are kept in a vault at the Heritage Center.
Many of the subjects are suggested for interviewing by a friend, family member or other community member. The first phone call can be met with some uncertainty or suspicion so interviewers may follow up with a letter on the organization's letterhead before getting together.
"When possible we give them the name of the person who recommended them, that gives a little more credence to the phone call," said Anne Magoun, co-founder and board member of the Women's History Project. "We're not asking for social security numbers but to some people this [interview request] might be invasive."
The interviewer also provides the Women's History Project an index for each tape, either by taking quick notes during the interview or listening to the tape afterward. The index summarizes the high points of the subject's life in outline form.
"I think the most important thing is to list, list, list," noted Doughty.
For more information on the Women's History Project of Northwest Michigan or the group's oral history interviews, contact Doughty at 933-4801 or see the group's website at www.whpnm.org.