Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: Looking for Vade Mecum Part 2 I. Foundations Chapter 3 1. The History of Oral History Chapter 4 2. Oral History as Evidence Part 5 II. Methodology Chapter 6 3. Research Design and Strategies Chapter 7 4. Legal and Ethical Issues in Oral History Chapter 8 5. Oral History Interviews: From Inception to Closure Chapter 9 6. Oral History and Archives: Documenting Context Chapter 10 7. The Uneasy Page: Transcribing and Editing Oral History Part 11 III. Theories Chapter 12 8. Memory Theory: Personal and Social Chapter 13 9. Aging, the Life Course, and Oral History: African American Narratives of Struggle, Social Change, and Decline Chapter 14 10. A Conversation Analytic Approach to Oral History Interviewing Chapter 15 11. Women's Oral History: Is It So Special? Chapter 16 12. Narrative Theory Part 17 IV. Applications Chapter 18 13. Publishing Oral History: Oral Exchange and Print Culture Chapter 19 14. Biography and Oral History Chapter 20 15. Fractious Action: Oral History-Based Performance Chapter 21 16. Oral History in Sound and Moving Image Documentaries

About the Author

Thomas L. Charlton is professor of history at Baylor University. He is director of The Texas Collection library/archival center and author of Oral History for Texans (1981, 1985). Lois E. Myers is associate sirector of the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University. Rebecca Sharpless is assistant professor in the Department of History at Texas Christian University.

Reviews

This handbook is an inspired combination of the practical and the theoretical. An essential companion for anyone interested in the multifarious, cross-disciplinary research movement that has come to be known as 'oral history.'
*Jacquelyn Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill*

Given the range of academic disciplines embracing oral history, college and university libraries should give this book serious consideration. It belongs in the reference library of every oral history program.
*CHOICE*

A simple conversation can be a key resource in gathering information about the past—yet obtaining, documenting, and preserving this information can be much more complicated. This compilation of essays by top historians dissects oral history, from its deeply rooted origins to its numerous modern applications.
*Museum News*

The editors set out to collect essays that could serve as an introduction to the contemporary practice and theory of oral history and succeeded in assembling a guide to the state of the field... The &ltHandbook for Oral History chapters were written expressly for this book and with its goals in mind, giving this anthology relative thematic coherence... Indeed, among the volume's many strengths is its tendency to promote and extend oral history's most theoretical and practical questions.
*Register of the Kentucky Historical Society*

Handbook of Oral History is...an essential purchase for oral historians in the United States....readers...will be stimulated by many insightful essays, and can take advantage of an excellent, consolidated bibliography.
*Oral History*

This handbook brings together some of the ablest oral historians to offer thoughtful, thorough, and timely assessments of their field. It belongs on the shelf of anyone seriously interested in the theory and practice of oral history.
*Donald A. Ritchie, associate historian, U.S. Senate Historical Office; author of Doing Oral History*

The editors set out to collect essays that could serve as an introduction to the contemporary practice and theory of oral history and succeeded in assembling a guide to the state of the field... The chapters were written expressly for this book and with its goals in mind, giving this anthology relative thematic coherence... Indeed, among the volume's many strengths is its tendency to promote and extend oral history's most theoretical and practical questions.
*Register of the Kentucky Historical Society*