What's so Special about Women? Women's Oral History

Bibliographic Data

ID11240910
AuthorsSherna Berger Gluck (corresponding author), Sherna Gluck
Year1977
Volume2
Issue2
Pages3
Publication date1977-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFrontiers A Journal of Women Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0160-9009 • E-ISSN: 1536-0334
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3346006
OpenAlexW2323840756
LanguageEN
Citations received29

Refusing to be rendered voiceless any longer, women are creating a new history--using our own voices and experiences. We are challenging the traditional concepts of history, of what is historically important, and we are affirming that our everyday lives are history. Using an oral tradition, as old as human memory, we are reconstructing our own past. When women historians first began the task of creating and expanding the field of women's history, we relied on traditional historical concepts and methods. We busily searched for hidden clues to direct us to lost heroines, and, whenever possible, we sought out those who were still alive in order to record their past experiences. Because so little documentation was available on the lives and activities of these women, we found ourselves in a situation similar to that of Allan Nevins, who developed the method of oral history in 1948.1 With the advent of the telephone and the decline in the practice of journal writing and lengthy correspondence, historians were faced with a drying up of many of the sources on which they traditionally depended. Oral history, emerging then as the sound recording of the reminiscences of public figures, was hailed as a method which could create alternative sources

Archaeology · Oral history · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis

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