Collection + Exhibits

Oral Histories

 

Listen to the stories of life and labor from those who lived it.

Listen to and learn about what it was like to be the person who swept the factory floor, to the president of the company who oversaw it all, and everyone in between. With over 300 recorded oral histories in our collection, you’ll hear first-hand accounts of life and labor from the 1900s and on.

Thank you to Oral Historian Andrea L’Hommedieu who conducted our original 45 interviews in 2004, as well as Anthropologist, Documentary Photographer and USM Professor Dr. Mark Silber who took the official portraits that accompanied each story. We’re also grateful to the Bates College students from anthropology, French, and history classes who conducted additional interviews and added 150 oral histories to our collection. Thanks also to the UNH Introduction to Digital Humanities students who organized and edited the first batch of oral histories to add to this site. Many thanks to Dr. Marcelle Medford at Bates College for conducting interviews with Black community members to add to this growing collection.

Still ongoing, new interviews and recordings will continue to be added to this collection to capture the diversity of our community and the experiences of life and work that happened here.