Affirming Humanity: Why Oral History Matters
Barry York
The importance of oral history in providing a richer texture to the fabric of our history and heritage was the subject of a March 1997 seminar at the National Library of Australia. Oral historian Barry York reported in the May 1997 issue of National Library of Australia News.
'Voices and Memory', the title of a National Library oral history seminar held on 8 March 1997, brought together a highly enthusiastic audience and nine speakers. The bright blue Canberra day commenced with a tour of the Library's Oral History Section. Guided by Kevin Bradley and Colin Webb, the 'Decibels and Databases' tour introduced many participants to the complex technical equipment and issues involved in sound preservation.
It was a most appropriate way to begin the seminar, as sound preservation is what makes the National Library unique in the field of oral history and folkloric field recording. Of course, one can add the uniqueness of the recordings themselves; no other Australian library has developed such a vast and diverse collection. And only the National Library, through its Sound Preservation and Technical Services Unit, is able to permanently preserve the voices recorded.
This, as Director-General, Warren Horton, pointed out in opening the seminar, is a very expensive process but one which has resulted in a diverse collection of which everyone is proud. Warren Horton drew attention to the fact that the seminar actually marked 40 years of oral history collecting by the National Library. It all began in 1957 with Hazel de Berg, whose 1200 interviews with prominent Australians, mainly in the arts, have been catalogued in the publication The Hazel de Berg Recordings (1989).
The Director-General spoke of his own participation as the subject of a continuing interview. He told the audience that he is the type of person to keep all his documentary records - every scrap of paper! He said he found being interviewed a fascinating experience because it brought out a great deal that was not available even in his extensive files.
That, of course, is one of oral history's great strengths: it can go beyond the written word. All the seminar speakers were united in recognising the importance of oral history in entering the more human, subjective dimension of research and understanding. Mark Cranfield, the Library's Chief Oral History Officer, spoke of 'the music of voice' and, drawing on recent research which has established that human beings have different and separate domains of intelligence, argued that oral history can bring life into history as well as bringing history to life. Literary intelligence, visual intelligence and auditory intelligence represented different paths of understanding, he said.
The other speakers represented a range of special interests and tackled
the question of 'why oral history matters' from different perspectives.
The talk by physicist Dr Ragbir Bhathal struck me as particularly
significant. Oral history is usually the preserve of people trained in the
humanities and here, by Dr Bhathal's participation, was a practical
example of C.P. Snow's 'two cultures' - science and humanities - coming
together. Dr Bhathal's book on Australian astronomers who have made
significant contributions to international research in astronomy
(published last year by the National Library under the title
Australian Astronomers: Achievements at the
Frontiers of Astronomy) shows how oral history can span academic
disciplines. Dr Bhathal is currently working on another project, focusing
on Australian women scientists.
Diana Giese spoke of her work among Australia's Chinese communities. Her books Beyond Chinatown (published by the National Library in 1995) and Astronauts, Lost Souls and Dragons: Voices of Today's Chinese Australians (UQP, 1996) reflect her belief that oral history can 'reach back to other voices' and 'hitherto unexplored inner spaces', tapping into the 'eyewitness reports, opinions, myths, gossip, comment and hearsay that are the continuing defining autobiography of any community'. Diana Giese, like most other speakers, supplemented her talk with excerpts from interviews.
In my own seminar address, 'Oral History and Ethnic History', I attempted to draw lessons from my 14 years as a historian of the Maltese experience in Australia. After 250 interviews, I have become more aware of 'recording for the future'. Thus, in selecting a suitable interviewee, I ask myself, 'Will this interview be worthwhile 50 years from now?' It is my view that the critics of oral history often reveal genuine limitations in it - a point also acknowledged by Daniel Connell in his talk, 'Oral History - A Complementary Source not a Competing Source'.
Best known for his work with the ABC's Social History Unit, Daniel Connell replayed an excerpt from an interview with Phillip Brady, who was on the Iron Chieftain when it was torpedoed off the New South Wales coast in 1942. There was not a soul in the National Library Theatre who was not deeply moved by the tones in Brady's voice and the textures of his descriptions. There was also something typically Australian in Brady's reminiscence. Even among all the trauma and tragedy of a sinking ship, there was room for laconic humour - the survivors made sure the 'overtime book' was located before abandoning ship.
The Brady excerpt made a wonderful comparison with an earlier sound recording shared with the audience. It was, according to Connell, the 'oldest preserved sound recording made in Australia'. Dated 1896, it features a doctor in the Victorian town of Warenbool doing a chook imitation! At one level, it seems silly and irrelevant to serious historical concerns, but I heartily agree with Daniel Connell that 'With this imitation of a chook, heard across the decades, I recognise another human being ... and I feel kinship.' I think Daniel Connell captured the philosophical essence of oral history when he said it is about 'an affirmation of our common humanity'.
Perhaps the most exciting and innovative project discussed at the seminar was Seven Years On: Interviews with Emerged/Emerging Aboriginal Leaders. A joint project of historians Jackie Huggins and Peter Read, Seven Years On aims to interview promising young Aboriginal leaders or potential leaders at the rate of ten or twelve a year for six years, and then return, seven years later, to the first lot of interviewees. So far, they have recorded interviews with two land council directors, a lawyer, welfare worker, medical student, art student, doctor, two archaeologists, a publisher, footballer, actor, theatre director, poet, educator, teacher, public servant, sculptor and several people still at school. Some are already famous, such as entertainer Christine Anu, while some, such as Layla Yu, are the children of current Aboriginal leaders. Others are relatively unknown. As Peter Read pointed out, the first batch of interviews is not so much 'oral history' as 'contemporary commentary' which will, in seven years' time, be oral history. The encouraging message from this project, at this early stage, is that all the interviewees are very optimistic about the future.
While the seminar's title was 'Voices and Memory', it might well have had the subtitle 'In a Multimedia Age'. Daniel Connell referred in passing to multimedia collections 'coming into their own', but their importance was highlighted by two speakers in particular, Michelle Potter and Robin Hughes.
Michelle Potter interviews performing artists, particularly dancers, choreographers and administrators of dance companies. Her eagerly awaited oral history book, A Passion for Dance (available from the Library Shop ), will be published by the National Library in June this year. She has also curated a travelling exhibition for the National Library called Dance People Dance (which will open at the Library this month) in which she has used excerpts from recordings alongside the exhibition's printed and visual sources. This juxtaposition, she felt, highlighted oral history's difference and added a distinctive, human quality to the show.
The case for 'multimedia' as the way of the future was crowned by Robin Hughes's presentation. An independent filmmaker who chairs the Council of the Australian Film Television and Radio School, she is best known for the ABC-TV series Australian Biography. Her claim that the face can be as important as the voice was certainly verified by the screening of clips from the television series she produces and directs. Just as those with an exclusively audiotape approach speak of the 'voice-print', Robin Hughes spoke of the 'face-scape'.
The seminar was a rich experience for all involved. I doubt if many will forget the large screen-sized visage of 'Nugget' Coombs, tears raining down his cheeks, reflecting on Australia's treatment of the Aboriginal people. Or, for that matter, Flo Bjelke-Petersen talking about the connection between pumpkin scones and federal politics!
An interesting difference between Robin Hughes' approach to interviewing and that of the National Library is the former's lack of specialisation. The Library increasingly relies on experts in a particular field whereas the Australian Biography series relies on the same interviewer to cover a range of subject areas.
The seminar was formally closed by Jan Fullerton, the Library's Assistant Director-General, Collections and General Services Division. She made the point, surprisingly not made by other speakers, that oral history is an area where the collecting institution actually creates an historical source. She reaffirmed the Library's strong commitment to oral history, especially in its contribution to a new area of strategic interest - namely, 'popular culture'.
The proceedings of the 'Voices and Memory' seminar can be located online.
Dr Barry York is a Research Fellow in the Department of Social and Cultural Studies at Victoria University of Technology
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