OCR Text |
Show Techniques discussed Historians and ar- :hivists are concerned: i Americans are writing fewer letters these days and for the most part no longer keeping diaries, once invaluable research sources for piecing together the past. To help counter this loss, however, many professionals are turning on their tape recorders to capture the recollections of the nation's decisionmakers decision-makers and pace-setters. Pioneered at Columbia University in the late 1940s, the first so-called oral history interviews recorded the memoirs of political and military leaders who had participated par-ticipated in World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar N. Bradley among others. Since then, the technique has become a valuable resource for such organizations as-the as-the Smithsonian's Archives Ar-chives of American Art, where millions of original research materials deeded by artists, collectors, critics and others document U.S. cultural history. The Archives' collection of talks-on-tape, for example, helps chart how New York City became the world capital of comtemporary art in the 1950s. And now thousands of families and local history buffs also are finding tape cassettes useful tools for puzzling together their own heritage. The principles and benefits-not to mention potential pitfalls-involved in taping the histories apply to both the professional researcher and the amateur genealogical sleuth. "At its best," says Garnett McCoy, senior curator of the Archives, "the method stimulates spontaneity which, under informed probing by a detached but sym-patheticquestioner, produces unstudied and revealing recollections." The secret of the successful interview, one veteran of the technique maintains, is "an abiding interest in people, an interest which puts them at ease and encourages a good 1 flow of conversation." con-versation." But things can and do go wrong. "A 1959 interview in-terview in the Archives' collection with the American realist painter Edward Hopper produced little more than a series of blunt "yes" and "no" replies to questions about the theme of his work-loneliness work-loneliness and alienation in America. At last, when Hopper, eager to talk about prices his paintings were commanding, began to open up a bit, Mrs. Hopper cut in, "Edward! Don't you discuss that." Besides this sort of interruption, faulty memories and lack of objectivity also can flaw an interview. Then, too, some subjects may insist on their own self-serving version of the past; still others wander through a maze of irrelevant trivia. While written and printed material remains the "bread and butter" of research for most historians, the taped interview, McCoy believes, offers one quality often missing in a collection of papers "the vivid detail, the graphic phrase, the element of color expressed ex-pressed in spontaneous conversation." In taping the interview, Archives' staff members recommend that the subject be questioned in a relaxed, unstructured manner. At the same time, the interviewer must know exactly what type of information is needed in order to guide the conversation along. |