Using Oral History
A Biographer’s Point of View
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11077460 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Milton Meltzer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1979 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 42-46 |
| Publication date | 1979-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Oral History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-0798 • E-ISSN: 1533-8592 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ohr/7.1.42 |
| OpenAlex | W2316656247 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
When I began work on Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life, I was told that few letters of hers survived, and that she kept no diary or journal. A dismal prospect for a biographer. I did know that Lange had been taped in nearly a dozen 90-minute interviews by the Regional Oral History Office at the University of California, Berkeley, some five years before her death in 1965. And that her second husband, Prof. Paul S. Taylor, had been taped at even greater length by ROHO in 1970-72. This was enough for me to feel it was worthwhile going ahead, despite the apparent shortage of documents. I could be fairly sure that other sources would turn up if I dug hard enough. I discovered that there were at least fragmentary journals, especially of Lange's travels in late years, heaps of detailed caption notes for her government photography, scores of letters exchanged with her FSA chief, Roy Stryker, and rich correspondence with certain family members as well as people important in her professional work.
Archaeology · Art history · Dozen · Economic shortage · Government (linguistics) · Oral history · Classics · History · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.04 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1980 - 1991 (12) |
| Highly cited | No |