Oral Histories at Wilson Special Collections Library: Collections at Wilson Library

The Wilson Special Collections Library is home to the University of North Carolina's North Carolina Collection, Rare Book Collection, Southern Folklife Collection, Southern Historical Collection, and University Archives and Records Management Services. Different than a library catalog which contains published materials that most often can be checked out of the library, Wilson Library's special collections contain archival materials that can only be viewed in the library or online if the materials have been digitized and have no access restrictions.

The five special collections hold unique and rare books, organizational records, personal and family papers, photographs, moving images, sound recordings, and artifacts that document the history and culture of the University, the state, the region, the nation, and the world. Of the five collections, oral history materials are mainly found in the Southern Historical Collection and the Southern Folklife Collection, though each of the other collections contain some oral history materials as well. Below we will explore each of these collections and the types of oral history materials that can be located in these special collections.

The Southern Historical Collection (SHC) is home to a diverse collection of unique primary sources about the U.S. South, with strengths in the Antebellum era through the Civil Rights Movement. The collection supports research on a variety of topics, including community and family histories, the history of slavery and its afterlives, social change and activism in the South, Southern arts and literature, and business and labor.

The collection was started as a way to document the lives of wealthy Southern enslavers, and that legacy is still felt in the collection materials accumulated during that time, as well as the original descriptions and arrangements of these materials. The current staff of the SHC are dedicated to holding space for voices and stories that have been historically excluded from the archival record through our collecting and outreach initiatives.

Part of the redress for the exclusion and inhuman representation of minoritized communities is the inclusion of oral histories. As this methodology allows for individuals and communities to document their own histories, the SHC has used this as a way to start collecting stories that show the wide variety and experiences of life in the American South.

To find oral history materials specific to the SHC, use the finding aids search engine labeled "Search Archival Collections" and enter "oral history." This will return results from all collections, not just the SHC. To find results only from the SHC's holdings, navigate to the "Limit Your Seach" sidebar on the left hand side of the webpage. One of the tabs will be labeled "Collecting Unit." Click on this tab and then select "Southern Historical Collection" as indicated in the picture below.

Once you have clicked the Southern Historical Collection filter, you will be shown results only from the SHC's holdings. Now there are results for approximately 178 collections containing over 3,500 oral history materials. You can further limit your search by using the other tabs under the "Limit Your Search" function in the sidebar on the left hand side of the webpage.

By browsing through the SHC's holding you can find a variety of oral history materials. One collection of interest is the Eastern Kentucky African American Migration Project Collection, 1927-2015. This collection was donated by a participatory community archiving project that aimed to document the lives and experiences of African American miners and their families in Eastern Kentucky. Further information about the development of the project and how this collection was brought to the SHC can be found in "On the Participatory Archive: The Formation of the Eastern Kentucky African American Migration Project" by Karida Brown, an organizer of the project and community member. The oral histories were donated along with other materials by community members, such as photographs, company employee housing blueprints, and local history documents.

"Mrs. Lillian and girls" donated by Reverend Ronnie Hampton, May 2015.

The Southern Folklife Collection (SFC) specializes in collection materials of traditional and vernacular music, art, and culture related to the American South. One of the nation’s foremost archival resources for the study of American folk music and popular culture, SFC holdings extensively document all forms of southern musical and oral traditions across the entire spectrum of individual and community expressive arts, as well as mainstream media production.

Within these collections, oral histories on folklife and contributor histories can be found. Using the same finding aid search engine to search "oral history" and clicking the "Southern Folklife Collection" under the "Collection Unit" search results filter, you will be able to view all oral history materials available in the SFC. This will populate approximately 76 collections and 245 materials related to oral histories.

An example of one of the collections with oral history materials in the SFC is the North Carolina Pottery Center Collection of Oral Histories, 2006-2007. The collection features audio interviews conducted by the North Carolina Pottery Center with North Carolina based potters. The finding aid for the collection shares that "interviews were part of the center's "Living Tradition" oral history project, which was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS). Denny Hubbard Mecham wrote the project proposal, titled "The Living Tradition: N.C. Potters in the 21st Century", on behalf of the center, while archivist, Michelle Francis, and folklorist, Charles G. Zug III, interviewed participants for the project. Notable artists featured on the recordings include Mark Hewitt of Pittsboro, N.C.; Ben Owen III of Seagrove, N.C.; Pam and Vernon Owens of Seagrove, N.C.; and Neolia Cole Womack of Sanford, N.C."

The North Carolina Collection originated with the founding of the North Carolina Historical Society in 1844. Since then, the North Carolina Collection’s Research Library has grown to become the largest collection of printed materials related to a single state. Related to oral histories, there are very limited materials available from this collection, though there are still some interesting items to be found.

Due to the collection being primarily print-based materials, the only oral history materials available are either transcripts of interviews or photographs of oral histories being conducted. If you are looking for interviews, the best way to find them for this collection is to search "transcript" through the finding aid search engine instead of searching "oral history." Then, filter by the North Carolina Collection like with the other collections. This will populate 7 collections with relevant materials.

If you do search "oral history" through the finding aid search engine, you will need to filter by "North Carolina Collection Photographic Archive" under the "Collecting Unit" filter as there are no results within the general "North Carolina Collection." Here you will find photographic materials related to oral histories, either photographed during the oral history process or gathered from oral history participants, like family photographs.

Withing the photographic archive, there are many interesting materials that can give examples of additional materials that could be created and gathered throughout conducting oral histories. One example is the Manfred and Ann Loeb Collection, 1939-1996(bulk 1939-1940), a collection of photographs and print materials of a family of Jewish immigrants that settled in North Carolina after fleeing Nazi Germany. This collection is related to the oral history materials found in the Southern Oral History Project's Southern Communities: Listening for a Change: Jewish Immigrants Project.

Titled "Black and White Photographic Print 0001: Photographic Prints from Loeb Album: Scan 7." Includes captions: "The Heimann family at home"; "Mr. Heimann, Always the German aristocratic professional wearing dress shirt and tie. For some settlers, change did not come easy."

Within the University Archives and Records Management Services collecting area, materials related to UNC's operations, personnel, and history are stored and made available for education, research, and public service use. While less than other collecting areas, there are approximately 35 collections with some oral history materials.

These materials can be found through the finding aid search engine as described previously and using the "Collecting Unit" search limiter by selecting the "University Archives and Records Management Services" collecting unit.

Among the materials, you will find oral histories with former faculty and staff at UNC. One such oral history found in the Tiffany R. Washington Oral Histories on Social Work Education, 2008 collection is the oral history interview with Hortense McClinton. As described in the item description, McClinton was "born in 1918 in Boley, Oklahoma, which, at the time, was a vibrant and active, predominately African American city. She enrolled at Howard University in 1936 where she majored in Sociology. She moved to Philadelphia and completed her graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the School of Social Work. While in Philadelphia, she became the first African American member of the American Association of Social Workers (AASW), where she also served as secretary. She also met and married her husband, John McClinton, who was working for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance as a travelling auditor. She and John moved to Durham where she worked part-time at a play school so that she could spend more time raising their daughter. She was then hired by the Durham County Department of Social Services at the Veterans Administration hospital, becoming the first African American social worker to be employed there. She joined the School of Social Work at UNC at Chapel in 1966 and was the first African American faculty member to be hired at Carolina."

The materials in this collection can be viewed while on UNC's campus or with a valid UNC ONYEN login.

Within the Rare Book Collection, includes close to 200,000 printed volumes, as well as substantial holdings of original graphics, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, and literary and historical papers. As part of the historical papers and literature, this collection contains materials mainly of oral history transcripts and published research in which oral histories were used. You are able to find these materials by following the same steps as described above to search "oral history" through the finding aid search engine and then limit the results to the Rare Book Collection under the "Collecting Unit" filter. This will return results for approximately 4 collections with 54 items.

One example of the materials available is the oral histories conducted during research my Judith Diane Wheeler found in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education Master's Papers and Community Diagnosis Projects, 1947-2015 collection. The materials, named the Wheeler, Judith Dianne: Learning by Listening Oral History: a Research Tool for Health Education, 1986, can be accessed by visiting Wilson Library's reading room and viewing them in person. In the section "Registering and Requesting Materials at Wilson Library," we will review the process for requesting materials for viewing in the reading room.