Telling Community Stories

Oral histories are an invaluable resource for understanding a community and an important step in community preservation work. The following resources offer guidance conducting oral history interviews and examples of oral history projects in New York City. 

Oral History Best Practices 

• How to Conduct an Oral History Interview - 9 tips to get started with conducting your own oral history interview from the National Trust for Historic Preservation 

• Oral History Best Practices - The Oral History Association’s guide to “producing historically valuable and ethically conducted interviews.”

• How to Do Oral History - Best practices from the Smithsonian Oral History Program at the Smithsonian Institution Archives

Oral Histories and Historic Preservation 

• Celebrating the Power of Storytellers: The Importance of Oral Histories in Preserving a Neighborhood’s Spirit - This blog post from Manhattan-based historic preservation organization Village Preservation highlights a few of their archive of over 70 interviews.

• The New York Preservation Archive Project Oral History Collection - Documents the experiences and perspectives of New York City preservationists.

Company and Organization Histories 

The following examples are ways to illustrate the themes and cultural history that may emerge from or accompany oral history interviews. 

• The Carnegie Corporation effectively illustrates their company history through an interactive Founder’s Story page that combines written, visual and audio components. 

• Similarly, Cadbury uses timelines as online exhibits that tell their company story, whike Nike’s Stories section on their website delves deeper into the innovation in the company’s history.

New York City Oral History Projects 

The following links offer a selection of the numerous oral history projects that have been conducted across the five boroughs. 

• Citywide 

• Veteran Voices Project

• NYC Trans Oral History Project

• Visible Lives - Oral Histories of the Disability Experience

• Brooklyn 

• Brooklyn Historical Society Collection via Brooklyn Public Library 

• Manhattan 

• The New York Public Library Community Oral History Project

• Staten Island 

• DSNY Oral History Archive - Stories, wisdom & history of the New York City Department of Sanitation

• Sandy Ground Oral History Project - Preserving Staten Island's Past

• Stapleton Speaks - Our Neighborhood Oral History Project

• The Bronx 

• Bronx Oral Histories

• Remembering Riverdale - Our Neighborhood Oral History Project

• Voices from East of Bronx Park - An Oral History Project of the Allerton, Van Nest, Pelham Parkway and Morris Park Communities

• Queens 

• Queens Memory Project - an ongoing program of Queens College and the Queens Public Library designed to collect stories, images, and other evidence of life in the borough of Queens.