Oral History Program--General Information

The Youngstown State University Oral History Program, founded in 1974 by Professor Hugh Earnhart, collects and preserves first-person narratives of northeastern Ohioans who have participated in or closely observed economic, social, political, religious, and intellectual events which have significantly affected both the state and nation.

Currently there are nearly 2,000 interviews in the collection and over 25,000 pages of transcribed material, making it the largest oral history archives in the state. The transcribed interviews are available for use by research scholars, students, journalists, genealogists, and other interested groups. Researchers have used our oral history material for theses, dissertations, articles, and books.

Our holdings include such diverse subjects as Jewish History in Youngstown, the Ku Klux Klan, women in industrial unions, the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, the steel industry, Italian culture, and African-Americans in northeastern Ohio.

New additions to the Youngstown State University Oral History Program include interviews with immigrants in Farrell, Pennsylvania, former YSU football players, residents of Lowellville, and Irish immigrants. In 2001 and 2002, students in the oral history class interviewed workers at the GM Lordstown plant. The project will continue in 2003 and expand to include the IUE at Delphi-Packard.

The Oral History Program offers a limited number of workshops in which we teach oral history methodology to local historical societies, libraries, and other interested parties. In 2001, the Center for Historic Preservation co-sponsored a three day Oral History Institute at YSU, in partnership with the Ohio Humanities Council and the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums.  In 2002 and again in 2003, the Institute will be held at Kenyon College; it is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
 
 
 
 
 

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