Author: Paul Burnett
Oral History Center Director’s Column — March 2017
Director’s Column March 2017: “History as a Retreat”
The year 2017 is certainly off to a tumultuous start with the words uncertainty, acrimony, and conflict in regular circulation throughout the body politic. As such, there is good reason that so many of us are glued to our news feeds, anxiously awaiting what sensation story might come next. But there is also good reason, I think, to step back from the flurry of ‘the now’ and retreat a bit into the past. I’ve never been one to accept the notion that by studying history we can inoculate ourselves from repeating the mistakes of the past. I think that the present is not only a different time, but also a different place, so we would be asking too much of history to play such a preventative role. Still, as a historian, I am convinced that knowledge of the past can help us better understand the present and perhaps suggest a range of options for how we might respond (or not) to the contemporary scene. I recently finished reading Chernow’s tour-de-force biography of Alexander Hamilton. If there is one point to glean from this remarkable book it is that “uncertainty, acrimony, and conflict” have been hallmarks of our nation’s political life from its inception, resulting even in that infamous duel in which a Vice President mowed down a Treasury Secretary in a bloody duel! Yet, the union persisted, lived another day to provide a home for men and women to attempt to improve the lives of their fellow citizens.
In recent months, I have found myself engrossed in many of the excellent interviews conducted by the Oral History Center over the past 63 years in an effort to gain insight into the challenges of the past and how people — often people whose names would have been forgotten if not included in our collection — responded to and rose above those challenges. See, for example, the post in this newsletter about our “Slaying the Dragon of Debt” oral history project, which provides great insight into federal budget battles of decades past, including an account of how the two parties managed to compromise and thus bring about budget surpluses by the end of the 1990s. This compromise, please recall, happened amidst bitter political fighting and a salacious presidential sex scandal. Also check out our recent podcast season, produced and written by OHC historians Todd Holmes, Shanna Farrell, and Cristina Kim, that traced the evolution of women’s participation in politics from the battle for suffrage to the “Year of the Woman” in 1992. This series puts our most recent election into necessary context and, perhaps, provides some ideas for how to move forward and guarantee full political equality for women. And, finally, in the coming days (on April 10th to be precise), keep your eyes peeled for the release of our brand new project documenting the movement that won the freedom to marry for same-sex couples in the United States. The 100 hours of interviews of this project basically propose a blueprint for social change in this era in which extremes win and positions seem ever more calcified. I think you’ll be surprised to learn all that happened behind the scenes and just how a quick and profound change in public opinion took place.
History, then, can be a place of retreat. Not retreat as in “escape” or “surrender” but in the sense of a place to go to rest and to be nourished and to prepare oneself for the challenges — and opportunities — that surely will rise before us.
Martin Meeker
Charles B. Faulhaber Director
Oral History Center
Out from the Archives: Slaying the Dragon of Debt
Slaying the Dragon of Debt: OHC’s Look into Federal Budgets from the 1960s into the 2000s.
Debt and deficits, budget reconciliation, CBO scoring. These arcana have again appeared at the forefront of social media feeds and on the front pages of newspapers as Congress and the White House attempt to pass the new President’s agenda while figuring out how to pay for it.
Back in 2010, OHC director Martin Meeker and then-postdoc scholar Patrick Sharma embarked on a brief but intensive oral history project — that we called “Slaying the Dragon of Debt” — exploring the recent history of federal debt and deficits. The central question asked at the beginning of the project went something like this: how was it that after running deficits for over 25 years, the federal government was able to produce a budget surplus in 1998 and every year until 2001, when we returned to deficits? As the project progressed, plenty of other questions were asked as well: Can the surpluses be attributable to President Clinton’s fiscal policies? To the belt-tightening mandated by Congressional Republicans? To the monetary policies of Alan Greenspan’s Fed? To broader economic trends, such as the dot.com boom? To something else entirely? To all of the above?
As we enter into a new fiscal regime, we think it is useful to return to our project on debt and deficits and attempt to seek insights into the complex workings of federal fiscal and monetary policy and how those policies are influenced by profound political shifts , warring parties, and memorable characters. As the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is now brought under criticism by the White House Office of Management and Budget, we want to know how have those offices worked together — or against one another — in the past. Has the work of CBO always been politicized and if so, how? Is the kind of rhetoric we hear today something entirely new or is it just another chapter in the decade’s long battles around government spending?
This project featured interviews with several former directors of the CBO, including Douglas Holtz-Eakin, June O’Neill, Rudolph Penner, Robert Reischauer, and Alice Rivlin. The project also includes interviews with a handful of former OMB directors, including: James McIntyre, Jim Miller, and, again, Alice Rivlin. Perhaps among the most revealing interviews are those with key staffers who worked behind the scenes, crafting legislation, and making policy. We recommend reading through the oral histories with Bill Hoagland, who served as staff director for the Senate Budget Committee from 1986 to 2003, and Joseph Minarik, who was the chief economist at the OMB throughout Clinton’s two terms. Let us know what you think!
Cliff Dochterman: A Rotarian’s Pursuit of Happiness through Service
It’s with great pleasure that we announce the publication of Cliff Dochterman’s oral history; “Cliff Dochterman: A Rotarian’s Pursuit of Happiness through Service.” A former Rotary International President (1992-1993), Dochterman is best known for jumpstarting the PolioPlus program that immunized over 2.5 billion children around the world and his ability to raise millions of dollars for refugees during the Yugoslav Wars. Dochterman is credited as for helping Rotary International realize its potential as a global philanthropic and service organization. His decades-long dedication to Rotary International, Boy Scouts of America, higher education administration both here at the University of California and at the University of the Pacific demonstrate his gift for fundraising and his unwavering commitment to service.
Given everything Dochterman has done for the Rotary world, it’s hard to believe that Dochterman was initially rejected from the Berkeley Rotary Club. A young University of California administrator and assistant to UC President Clark Kerr, Dochterman finally gained acceptance into the Berkeley Rotary Club after a third nomination. Shortly after joining the club, he became Berkeley’s Club President and then the local District Governor and member of various international committees. Of course, his meteoric rise comes as no surprise to those that know Cliff Dochterman personally.
As the current Rotary International President, John Germ, aptly notes in the introduction to Dochterman’s oral history, “Cliff is an individual who is a role model for individuals who desire to create a better world. As a Rotarian, Scout leader and a dedicated American, he has led by example always putting others above himself. His joyful disposition has brought great success in motivating others to community service. We are all better because we have had the opportunity to serve with him and to know him.”
Cliff Dochterman’s oral history is part of the OHC’s larger Philanthropy collection. We highly encourage all those interested in learning more about the dynamic history of Rotary International to read “Cliff Dochterman: A Rotarian’s Pursuit of Happiness through Service.”
Professor Susan Ervin-Tripp: 2016 Class of ’31 Interviewee in University History
One of the great joys of being an oral historian is getting to talk to people you otherwise wouldn’t have known. We have the privilege of asking people about their lives, putting their experiences in context of the larger historical landscape, posing questions that others don’t have the opportunity to ask. I had the opportunity to do just this when I interviewed Professor Susan Ervin-Tripp in 2016.
Professor Dan Slobin puts it best in the introduction he wrote for Ervin-Tripp’s oral history:
Throughout her long and productive career, Susan Ervin-Tripp has repeatedly been a path-breaker. And the paths that she helped explore have become well-traveled roads. I is remarkable to see so many innovations in one life story: psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, embracing new directions in the study of first-language acquisition as well as bilingualism; repeated applications of new technology: computers, tape recorders, video recorders, wireless microphones; design of new methods of transcribing and documenting the many layers of speech interaction; cross-linguistic and cross-cultural research, with attention to both individual and interpersonal dimensions of language. Along with these contributions to the scientific side of her profession, Ervin-Tripp has given equal attention to the institutional and political dimensions of academia, focusing on the treatment of women and minorities. Wherever possible, she used her academic skills as a psycho- and sociolinguist to provide a scientific foundation to her advocacy.
Slobin is not the only one who values Ervin-Tripp’s many contributions. Her interview was part of our Class of ’31 series, in which faculty and staff, both current and retired, are nominated by admirers to the subject an oral history. Ervin-Tripp received numerous, passionate nominations which conveyed a resounding eagerness to document her work in academics and equity, knowing that we could all benefit from learning about her trailblazing work.
I sat down with Ervin-Tripp for our first interview in May of 2016. It was immediately clear that she was a practiced speaker, having taught for many years, with a healthy sense of humor. She was poised and articulate, prepared with her notes. Over the course of our six hours of interviews, we discussed her childhood during the Great Depression in Minneapolis, Minnesota, her undergraduate education at Vassar College, her doctoral work at the University of Michigan, and her career at UC Berkeley, which began in 1958. She detailed her work on the Southwest Project in Comparative Psycholinguistics studying the connection between language and cognitive performance, her time as a professor in the Psychology and Speech Departments at Berkeley, her early adoption of technology in her research, her participation at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences and with the 1985 Scientific Exchange program in France. She talked about the significant advances that she made for women’s equality on campus and the multiple efforts she made to create such change.
It was a pleasure to have interviewed a woman whose career has impacted Berkeley so greatly. There are many lessons to learn from this interview, particularly the courage and persistence it takes to create an equitable environment. Professor Susan Ervin-Tripp’s oral history is one that is rare for her generation and one that should be celebrated.
Shanna Farrell, Interviewer, Oral History Center
NEW PRIZE in UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH: Carmel and Howard Friesen Prize in Oral History Research — Call for Submissions
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library is proud to announce a new prize to be awarded to a UC Berkeley undergraduate student in Spring 2017: The Carmel and Howard Friesen Prize in Oral History Research. The Friesen Prize comes with a $500 award.
The Friesen Prize will be awarded to the Berkeley undergraduate student who submits the best essay that draws upon Oral History Center interviews. The selection committee will evaluate the submission based on these three criteria:
- How well oral histories are integrated within and essential to the overall essay
- How creatively oral histories are used in the essay
- And the overall quality and persuasiveness of the essay
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library was established in 1954 and since that time roughly 4000 interviews have been completed, transcribed, and made available to researchers. Nearly all interviews are available to everyone in transcript form at the Center’s website.
Oral histories have been conducted across a wide range of thematic areas including: arts and literature, science and medicine, social movements and community history, business and labor, politics and government, law and jurisprudence, food and agriculture, and the history of the University of California. Major projects featuring multiple interviews include: the Berkeley Free Speech Movement; the marriage equality movement; Rosie the Riveter / World War II Home Front; venture capital; Kaiser Permanente and health care; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; mining and the environment; the law clerks of Chief Justice Earl Warren; the Sierra Club; the disability rights and independent living movement; and the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, to name just a handful.
The Prize is named for Carmel and Howard Friesen. Carmel and Howard were married for 64 years when Carmel passed away in 2015. Both Friesens attended Berkeley and have supported Berkeley for decades. In 2015, the Friesens granted to the Oral History Center a generous endowment that supports this prize in addition to interviews conducted by the center.
To be eligible to win, applicants must:
Be Berkeley undergraduates at any class level (lower- or upper-division) and in any discipline (arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences, and engineering) and have completed their research project for a credit course at UCB taken in Spring 2016, Summer 2016, Fall 2016, or Spring 2017.
Submissions are due by April 1, 2017, delivered via email to mmeeker@library.berkeley.edu
For additional information, including restrictions for those already receiving financial aid, applicants are encouraged to visit the Friesen Prize website: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/oral-history-center/prizes
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The Oral History Center (OHC), a research division of The Bancroft Library, documents the history of California, the nation, and the interconnected global arena. OHC produces carefully researched, audio/video-recorded and transcribed oral histories and interpretative historical materials for the widest possible use. OHC was formerly known as the Regional Oral History Office.
Nominations Open: Annual “Class of ’31” Interview in University History
Nominations Open: Annual “Class of ’31” Interview in University History
Nominations for the 2017 “Class of ’31 Oral History Interviewee” are now open! We invite people to nominate a UC Berkeley faculty or staff person who has made a significant contribution to the life of the campus. The person selected will be invited to participate in an oral history interview conducted by our office. Selection criteria include: willingness of the nominee to participate, OHC interviewer expertise, uniqueness and rarity of the nominee’s story and level of contribution to campus life, and the generation of the nominee. Past “Class of 1931” interviewees include: Anthropology Professor Laura Nader; speechwriter for UC presidents Pat Pelfrey; Director Emeritus of the Pacific Film Archive Edith Kramer, and sociolinguist Susan Ervin Tripp.
From the Archives: Fiona Thomson’s Interview With former Black Panther Ericka Huggins
This month, in conjunction with the “All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50” exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California, we’re highlighting Fiona Thomson’s oral history of Ericka Huggins. In this interview, Huggins talks about her personal and spiritual history, her leadership role in the Black Panther Party, and her lifelong commitment to social justice.
In 1968, at age 18, Huggins became a leader in the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party with her husband John Huggins. Three weeks after the birth of their daughter, John Huggins was killed and Erika Huggins was widowed. After returning to New Haven, Connecticut, to be with John’s family, Ericka Huggins was invited by community members and students to open a party chapter there. She accepted the invitation.
In May 1969, Huggins and fellow Party leader Bobby Seale were targeted and arrested on conspiracy charges, sparking “Free Bobby, Free Ericka” rallies across the country. The resulting trial, one of the longest and most celebrated of the era, spawned several books.
While awaiting trial for two years before charges were dropped, including time in solitary confinement, Huggins taught herself to meditate as a means to survive incarceration.
From 1973-1981, Huggins was Director of the Oakland Community School, a groundbreaking community-run child development center and elementary school founded by the Black Panther Party. In 1976, Ericka Huggins became both the first woman and the first Black person to be appointed to the Alameda County Board of Education.
A lifelong writer and poet, upon release from prison in 1971, Ericka became writer and editor for the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service. She is the co-author, with Huey P. Newton, of Insights and Poems, published in 1974. Huggins is now professor of Sociology and African-American Studies in the Peralta Community College District.
In her four interviews with Thomson, Huggins talks candidly about her experiences as a child in segregated Washington, DC, and as a mother, activist, spiritual practitioner and teacher, and friend and lover. The oral history adds to the Bancroft Library’s archive of materials related to the Black Panthers, including the papers of Eldridge Cleaver and the photographs of Stephen Shames.
If you are in the Bay Area, be sure to visit the multimedia exhibit at the Oakland Museum (open until February 12, 2017), to learn more about the Black Panthers and the contributions of Ericka Huggins and many others to the ongoing struggle for social justice.
Linda Norton, Senior Editor
From the Oral History Center Director: Looking Back on 2016
Reading through year-end reviews of 2016 is decidedly not a lighthearted pursuit. So many favorite musicians of my, and many other, generations have left us and though we have the gift of their music we also have sadness. Events on the world stage seem to descend only deeper into violence and chaos. And an ugly and contentious election cycle in our country — not to mention the surprise result — have left many fearing for the future of our democracy.
While remaining mindful of past disappointments and future challenges, I think that it is important to recognize achievements, successes, and positive outcomes too, for these sustain us and give us hope. We, at the Oral History Center, want to revisit some of the new and exciting developments of the past year that give us — give me — great optimism going forward into 2017.
As many of you may know the Oral History Center experienced a great generational transition beginning around 2011, with the retirements of our three most senior interviewers, associate director, and director. After many years of rebuilding, in 2016 the office has again built-out to roughly full capacity with the arrival of two additional interviewers: Todd Holmes and Cristina Kim. Joining Shanna Farrell and Paul Burnett (both of whom joined us in 2013), Holmes and Kim hit the ground running and by the end of the year have each conducted substantial life history interviews, played key roles in our Summer Institute and the first season of our new podcast series, and have begun developing what promise to be important new oral history projects.
The four lead interviewers, combined with Rosie the Riveter project interviewer David Dunham and I, conducted approximately 425 hours of interviews in 2016 — very likely a record level of productivity for our office. Each and every hour of interview contains something special and irreplaceable: a first-person account of a lived experience, of disappointments and failures, and of hopes and dreams. Projects completed or begun in 2016 include the Freedom to Marry project; Economist Life Stories; Global Mining and Materials Research; Getty Trust; Rosie the Riveter; and many others. Individual life history interviews were completed with leaders in the fields of environmental regulation, genetics, labor, health systems, music, law, education, philanthropy and community service, and foodways. In 2017 expect to see the release of the Freedom to Marry interviews, more interviews with artists and curators in partnership with the Getty Trust, as well as new interviews on the California Coastal Commission and the emergence of ethnic studies in the United States — to mention just a few areas.
The oral historians here at Berkeley have long been productive scholars and authors, publishing magazine articles, journal essays, and books. In 2016, however, we expanded our scholarly engagement activities by producing a podcast series “Tales from the Campanile.” The first season (we hope to produce two seasons annually), “From the Outside In: Women in Politics,” featured six episodes, each running 15-20 minutes in length which looked at a century of women’s role in politics leading up to the historic candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Lead producers Todd Holmes, Shanna Farrell, and Cristina Kim selected audio clips from our amazing interviews with leaders including suffragist Alice Paul, congress member Jeanette Rankin, and California secretary of state March Fong Eu; we were thrilled that Emmy Award-winning journalist Belva Davis agreed to narrate the podcast. For 2017 and beyond we have seasons in the works that will look at the history of the AIDS epidemic and California’s uber issue: water. Stay tuned!
The Center continued our educational offerings with great success. In March we hosted our annual “Introduction to Oral History Workshop” and in August our “Advanced Oral History Summer Institute.” A diverse and engaging group of participants attended both trainings and, as always, we were impressed by the enthusiasm and intelligence of the attendees, which we take as a harbinger of great oral history projects to come! We look forward to our 2017 Introductory Workshop, which will be held on Saturday February 25th and our Summer Institute, scheduled for the week of August 7th.
In addition to the new oral history projects, podcast seasons, and educational offerings, we are looking forward to getting our latest partnership with the National Park Service off the ground in 2017. David Dunham wrote about this in the previous newsletter, but, in brief, it entails nothing less than an expansion and improvement of the interview search on our website as well as, ultimately, streaming of complete oral histories online — a real first for the Center.
Finally, I want to conclude by offering my gratitude to the many people who make all of this work possible. Given that all of our interviews must receive external funding (the university does not pay the salaries of the interviewers, transcription, or equipment, for example), I want to thank all of the individuals and institutions who have invested in us over the last year. We strive to always improve the quality of our work and we very much hope that our dedication to the craft of oral history shows. We also invite everyone interested in supporting our work to assist us by making a tax-deductible donation to the Oral History Center. We are also always interested in hearing from our supporters about ideas for new projects and new interviews, and how we might go about finding sponsors for those projects.
I also want to thank my regular staff — Julie Allen, Paul Burnett, David Dunham, Shanna Farrell, Todd Holmes, Cristina Kim, and Linda Norton — for their essential contributions; I also extend my gratitude to our interns, student employees, emeritus interviewers, and Library colleagues. Last but not least, my heartfelt appreciation goes to our interviewees. We have never paid an interviewee for the time (sometimes numbering dozens of hours) that they give to our oral history projects.
Thank you and we look forward to staying in touch throughout 2017!
Martin Meeker
Charles B. Faulhaber Director
Oral History Center
Important New Partnership with the National Park Service / Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historic Park
When I joined the Oral History Center in 2002, we had just begun our collaboration with the National Park Service on the Rosie the Riveter / World War II Home Front Oral History Project. The initial phase of the project called for sixty interviews to document Richmond and the Bay Area during the home front period. I was an interviewer, transcriber, videographer, editor, and web producer.
Guinness World Record for Most People Dressed as Rosie the Riveter in one place.
Fourteen years later we have completed over 250 oral histories with women and men about this unique time period in United States history, making this our largest single community oral history project. Countless researchers, NPS staff, interviewers, transcribers, editors–and most of all our interviewees and their families–have been crucial to the success of the project thus far. I have continued interviewing and managed the project for the last many years and been fortunate in this journey to meet extraordinary individuals in many realms on the home front. Many of these charismatic women and men are still going strong in their 90s and 100s–no doubt in part to the same passionate energies that made them significant contributors on the home front in WWII.
There are countless lessons to be learned from the individual and cumulative experiences of these individuals. Now that we have recorded these stories, the National Park Service and OHC want to properly share these stories with students, teachers, and the world. To this end, we are collaborating with the National Park Service on a new project not to record new oral histories but to improve access to our completed oral histories by enhancing the collection’s searchability and ultimately sharing complete video interviews online synched with their oral history transcripts. As the voices of the Greatest Generation are passing on, we are grateful that we have recorded these stories and can ensure their voices can speak to future generations long after we have all passed.
To help make this vision a reality, we need your help. In year one of this two year project, OHC needs to match $45,000 in funds! Any contribution you can make towards this goal will be greatly appreciated. Please specify “Rosie” in your online gift form.
If you prefer to support with a check, please make your check payable to “UC Regents” and specify OHC-Rosie in the memo. Mail your check to:
Oral History Center
The Bancroft Library
ATTN: David Dunham
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
Thank you for your support of this community oral history project. I feel very lucky to have worked the entire course of this project, and am excited to help see it through the critical next stage to reach the full audience it should. Follow us for updates on this exciting project as we ensure these voices are preserved and shared, and the WWII home front lessons are passed on to generations yet to come.
-David Dunham, Rosie Project Interviewer and OHC Technology Lead
From the Director: A New School Year and New Initiatives at the Center
Long lines at the coffee bar, parking lots filled beyond capacity, and the return of warm weather to the perpetually foggy Bay Area — all signs that summer has ended and the mad rush of Fall Semester has begun. However, while the rest of campus was a little sleepy during the summer months, Berkeley’s Oral History Center witnessed, if anything, an increase in activity this year!
In June, we were thrilled and honored to welcome the newest historian/interviewer and fourth new interviewer in less than three years: Cristina Kim. Cristina comes to Berkeley from Brooklyn where she was working with StoryCorps doing outreach with community history projects across the U.S. OHC senior editor Linda Norton interviewed Cristina shortly after her arrival and wrote an excellent profile. In the brief time that Cristina has been with us she made a strong impact at our Summer Institute and already has completed her first life history interview. Please join me in welcoming Cristina!
Over the summer we launched a major new initiative with the start of our new podcast series called “Tales from the Campanile.” The series, anticipated to air twice a year, will feature narrated selections from old and new Oral History Center interviews. Given the historic nature of the 2016 presidential election, we chose to highlight our extensive collection with women in politics for our inaugural podcast season. This first series, which we are calling “From the Outside In: Women in Politics,” is being produced by a team of three Center historians: Cristina Kim, Shanna Farrell, and Todd Holmes, our other new interviewer, who we introduced in our May newsletter. For more information, I invite you to read Todd’s introduction to the podcast series. I’m pleased to report that from what I’ve seen this is going to be a truly excellent (not to mention entirely new) production from the Center that we hope will draw students, teachers, and voters into the Center’s collection to learn ever more about the ever-changing world of politics.
A second new initiative has also just begun and we are happy to announce it here. We continue our long-running partnership with the National Park Service – Rosie the Riveter / World War II Home Front National Historic Park through a multi-year project aimed at making our Rosie Project interviews more accessible through better search capability and, eventually, streaming of complete interview videos linked with transcripts. This new initiative, which is detailed below by Rosie Project interviewer and OHC Technology Lead David Dunham, promises to put OHC at the forefront of digital oral history. Importantly, this grant requires us to raise “matching funds” so we are asking you, our community, to help us meet our fundraising goals for this project too (again, more on that below).
And, finally, we are on the cusp of announcing several new oral history projects that we expect will get off the ground this fall. I can’t reveal all of them now, but I’m thrilled to report that our work with the Getty in Los Angeles will continue and grow and we will soon be starting a project with San Francisco Presidio Trust to help them document the history of one of the most unique national parks in the nation.
-Martin Meeker, Charles B. Faulhaber Director, Oral History Center