An Introduction to Oral History Online
Archives, reports, articles can tell us what, when and who but how does it feel to be part of a moment, or a movement. Oral History is a powerful method for understanding the experience behind the text. Furthermore it can uncover details that have been lost, voices that have been ignored, and inaccuracies that are thought of as fact.
Prolific and versatile academic Dr Madge Dresser has used oral history throughout her extensive career. In an introduction to oral history she explores the value of oral history, and how best to use oral testimonies.
This session provides excellent preparation for new researchers who are looking to conduct interviews. It is also a good practice reminder for established researchers.
This session is tailored for current volunteers on Art of Resistance, if you are interested in volunteering for the project, please contact esther@trinitybristol.org.uk.
Art of Resistance is a 2-year project exploring 100 years of social activism, protest, and civil disobedience in Bristol, and the art that underpinned each movement. Click here for more information about the project or to contribute content.
Dr Madge Dresser Biog
Dr. Madge Dresser, F.R.H.S., R.S.A., has lived in Bristol since 1972 and retired as Associate Professor in History at the University of the West of England in 2016. She has since been appointed Honorary Professor in Historical Studies at the University of Bristol. She has published and broadcast widely on various aspects of Britain and America’s social and cultural history including the history of Bristol in which she is passionately interested She has worked with people and organisations outside academia including local history groups, schools, family history societies, and various community centres in Bristol and further afield. . She was a founder member of Bristol Broadsides in the 1980s, a worker-writer cooperative which published local writers and alternative histories of the city. She has advised museums, public bodies and voluntary organisations throughout the world. Her Bristol-related publications include various edited works and articles on aspects of Bristol’s religious life; Black and White on the Buses; The Making of Modern Bristol; ’Peoples Housing in Bristol’ in Bristol’s Other History; Slavery Obscured: the Social History of the Slave Trade in Bristol; Ethnic Minorities and the City: Bristol 1000-2000, Pero’s Afterlife: emembering an enslaved African in Bristol’ (in Gretchen Gerzina’s Britain’s lack Past), “The elusive Lady Apsley: rethinking a post war M.P.” in Women’s History Review, and profiles of Thomas Daniel and Sarah Guppy for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
The project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
