Oral History

Makeda Barr-Brown recalls the contributions of the 2023 summer interns and shares their reflections.

Jordan Pollock describes her summer internship with the Oral History Program and reflects on the lessons from oral histories.

While reflecting on her summer internship with the Oral History Program, Arynn Carty discusses how oral history is like opening a cupboard.

The Stanford Historical Society hosted an event for former President John Hennessy and former Provost John Etchemendy to reflect on the challenges, strategies, and fond memories.

Makeda Barr-Brown describes the student interns' contributions to the historical record of the Stanford Libraries and shares their reflections and the lessons learned.

I was able to document and archive monumental parts of Stanford history during the Vietnam War Era and the COVID-19 pandemic without ever having been on campus.

Perhaps the greatest discovery made during the internship was that of John J. Johnson’s unpublished manuscript titled Foreign Images of the U.S.: 1860-1992: A Cartoon History.

A silver lining of the pandemic was the ability to engage a whole cohort of interns, spread across the country, in the effort of documenting the many aspects of Stanford history.

The sense that we are experiencing a major historical event is truly and intensely palpable, and there are many stories that we need to share with future generations.

I also now know the significance of oral history. I think most of the time we take stories for granted until they’re no longer available.

The 500th interview features Kathy Ku, who retired in 2018 after serving nearly four decades in Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing.

Schofield has conducted many interviews and edited many more oral history transcripts, while also shepherding the conceptualization and development of new oral history projects.