Archives of oral history

 French oral archives are more recent than American oral archives. This began with interrogation of the "forgotten of History". They are the   workers, the artisans. Historians wanted to narrate  "down history".An oral history developped who took methods of journalism and politicals sciences with narratives of remarquables, and political personnalities. First, it is the ethnology which develop exploitation of oral archives. These had a real public interest. 

The first investigation began in 1960's. Several historians used oral archives to make their thesis. For example,  Antoine Prost interviewed ex-servicemen to illustrate his thesis intitled Les anciens combattants et la société française.Other example, Jean Delmas defended his thesis of Ecole nationale des Chartes thanks to magnetic tapes about occitan words of buidling.At this time, the oral recordings are transcribed again in a written version to be conserved. Indeed, they didn't know how many time this recordings could be conserved and use with quality. This interviews became specific sources.

After individual initiatives, collective fundations created their oral heritage. These projects aimed to make attractive regional identies. André Parcher threw this project in Poitou Charente, interviewing peasants within an association  "Union pour la culture populaire en Poitou-Charentes".

History of present times developed in 1970's with exploration of audiovisual sources.However, this method is criticized by a lot of historians because  witness is alive and he could give a false reality of events.

Face to success of oral history, several institutions of French state decided to create  service charged to collect oral recordings. In 1974, the Service historique  de l'Armée de l'air created  a section of oral archives by initiative of General Christenne. He had this idea after he discovered oral history in the United States. This section was charged to make inquiry close to ancient aviators of the World War I.

Unlikely other oral history projects, these institutions led a critrical historic work about recordings. This work aimed to improve informations.

In 1980's, every ministries constituted corpus of oral archives.For example, ministry of Finances created CHEFF (Comity for economic and financial  history of France) in 1986.This comity aims to promote economic and financial history of France since Middles ages.It has to enable to constitute historical sources for historical search.Historians sit in Scientific commission. Archivists works in this comity and they have to collect, classify, conserve and communicate records of ministry and other founds about financial and economic history. This comity has collected  narratives of 300 persons since creation of Comity.It represent 3000 hours of recordings. in the majority of cases, These interviews are biographic, they draw professional career of interviewed persons (majority inspectors of finances). An anthology of this recordings was published and intitled Les voix des finances. 20 governement officials  talk about rebuilding of the country after World War II, creation of CEE, invention of TVA. 

Then local communities follows this movement.

                Nowadays, archives of oral history represent a considerable part of contemporary history sources. In a first time, this article will suggest a definition then a little historical.

                The common definition is this one : “Archives of oral history are documents composed of orals testimonies, they are caused or spontaneous and collected on disks or magnetic bands”. So, it is about the witnesses, the interviewer and his procedures, the equipment, the medium and finally the question about consideration and recognition towards those specifics sources. For example, those archives are often transcribed on paper. Do they need this transcription for recognition? We will answer in another article.

                Archives of oral history are born in USA in the 1910’s. Two sociologists of the University of Chicago decided to make investigations to describe and study the polish immigration in US. This sociogic and ethnologic approach led to a publication untitled The Polish Peasant in Europe and Americ.  However, history oral is born in reality with the initiative of the journalist Alan Nevin. He wrote a biography about President Cleveland and he remarked that Americans who have had important functions should be let marks after their passage. So he decided to create an organization in 1938. This organization took responsibility to collect those stories. He obtained financial means by University of Chicago ten years after, and his first experience led to a modest history of the town. Alain Nevin could led investigations in good conditions thanks to the creation of the tape recorder. Then, He carried on investigations on a national scale. He interests on beginnings of the Radio in the USA, and the workers of Ford Compagny. In 1960,  he published a catalogue of 130,000 interviews. This work influenced a larger project, which is the Federal Writers Project. More 6,000 persons took responsibility to interview people about politics of New Deal. Then, archives of oral history are more concentrated on interest of marginal, ethnical groups in the USA like Native American.

Those archives are deeply linked with oral history. Americans have oral history programs.  A program of oral history is established in the University of Los Angeles. This program takes responsibility for collection of accounts about History of South California and the history of the university. This mission has for aim to complete written sources. This point is a part of the answer about the recognition. The procedures became natural in the different organizations and institutions like the NASA. After scientists, oral history turns around “common people” who were eyewitnesses during important events like World War II. Thus, we will make comparisons with France.

To illustrate this article we have found this website about a fisherman from Fogo Island Billy Crane in the 1960s. Sadly the links about the interview seem broken : But it remains an example about oral history and projects. We have an opinion and a vision from a fisherman about the state and its measures : http://doodledaddle.blogspot.fr/2009_08_01_archive.html

Authors : Gwendoline and Flore-Hélène