Oral History Project in the works

The Journalism & Women Symposium, in conjunction with the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, is launching an oral history project that will create a multimedia archive of the oral histories of its members gathered by graduate students trained at the university. The archive will be housed at the University of Missouri’s journalism library with select entries available at the JAWS website.

Members of the Journalism & Women Symposium include some of the most important and celebrated women in journalism, from the first women to integrate newsrooms to women war correspondents to entrepreneurs who are creating new methods of journalism as the industry shifts and changes. The oral history project launches this summer with a two-day conference on July 16 and 17 that coincides with an existing program at the university on research methods. The conference will include workshops by Bonnie Brennen, a noted authority on oral history methods, and discussions with JAWS members about the project’s scope.

During the conference, graduate students will be recruited for the project and professors will have an opportunity to discuss how the oral history project may be included in their courses. The purpose of the oral history is to provide scholars as well as the general public the opportunity to hear from women journalists whose stories could be used for scholarly research, articles and multimedia projects of various forms.

If possible, a few oral histories will be taken and presented at the JAWS Camp this fall in Albuquerque, N.M. from Oct. 26-28.

Thanks to Fara Warner, Jessica Alpert, Peg Simpson and others on the Oral History Committee for helping to get the project started.