Oral History

 
The Oral History Project at the Women's Museum of California has begun to formally document the life stories and wisdom of its San Diego County Women's Hall of Fame inductees. In the fall of 2005, Oral History Director Dr. Irene Lara trained her "Women in Cross-Cultural Perspectives" undergraduate students at San Diego State University in feminist and decolonial interview methods. Five undergraduates volunteered to conduct qualitative interviews with Hall of Fame Inductees.

Prepared with a set of 11 questions that ranged from "what are your most memorable experiences?" to "do you consider yourself feminist, why or why not?" and instructions to follow the lead of their interviewees, they audio- video taped, transcribed and wrote a final paper about the interviewee's lives. The project's goal is to continue to train students in feminist interviewing methods and integrate video recording methods until all of the inductees are interviewed.

The Museum hopes to make these video-taped interviews available for viewing in the museum space so all visitors can experience these women's histories. In addition to the Hall of Fame inductees, oral histories were gathered from friends and colleagues of founder Mary Maschal, beginning in the mid 1980s under a grant from the San Diego Foundation.