Foghorn March 9 2016 Mtg - Historian Leah McGarrigle

She was a history undergrad; what the average person was doing during historical events was what drew her in. She went on to law school and managed to find a career that combined both history and law. She specializes in legal histories and has worked with several judges to preserve their legacies. 

 

She can assist anyone wanting to do family or community history, an Ethical Will, a statement of values or a statement of history. She is affiliated with an organization that employs mobile studios to gather information. They do a 40 minute interview (there's an app for that), they can even upload  it to The Library of Congress. 

 

The end product is a bound volume.  To get there takes verbatim interviews, research and lots of work.  It takes 10 hours to produce 1 hour of final copy. One of her interesting projects was a community who engaged her to interview their elders and compile the interviews.

 

Oral history is great way to track migration, account for victims, preserve memories and acknowledge those who survived.  Soviet Voice From the Afghan War, is a good read and demonstrates the use of oral history.  Another use is to honor someone. She has done this with judges.  It builds community, i.e., a Rosie the Riveter project that brought together women who had worked in shipyards during WWII; or the African American professors oral history project, which brought together an interesting group of "firsts". Little Big Man--was a good use of story telling. Portuguese in California and Save the Bay projects are also good examples.

 

We took a few minutes to interview our table mates to get a feel for the interview style, it was effective and, of course, always fun to learn more about a friend. Someone asked about reliability,  Yes, this is very subjective. Leah advises doing as much research as possible and acknowledge that it is subjective.

 

My favorite quotes today--"Listening as an act of love".  "Do the interview now, don't wait for memorial."  Oh, and "If you can't think of something nice to say, don't say anything at all".  Sage advice from our Moms--Rose's and mine.