Oral History as an Approach to
State History

Kimberly K. Porter

Several years ago, I accepted the charge of the University of North Dakota's Department of History to teach our state history course. Students quickly cast suspicious eyes on me, not only as the successor to an immensely popular professor but also as a nonnative North Dakotan teaching their state history class. Such challenges were augmented by the traditional difficulty of making such a class appear lively and relevant, as well as connected to the larger contours of national and world history. I decided that an oral history assignment could help address those concerns and the dearth of primary sources on North Dakota history. Since then, the oral history assignment has become an effective component of my course.	1
In the first weeks of the course, I provide basic information about interview techniques and ethics. I also urge students to consider potential interviewees who could provide insight into the state's heritage. They may interview subjects alone or in pairs. For example, a student might interview a husband and wife about their experiences on the farm, a mother and daughter about changes in women's lives over the decades, or perhaps brothers whose career paths have significantly diverged. In the following weeks, students select areas of inquiry, develop questions, and discuss their projects with each other and with me. Then they conduct the interviews, and each produces a paper that illustrates a key lesson about North Dakota obtained from the interview.	2
To help students appreciate the value of oral evidence, I assign Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story Told by Herself to Gilbert L. Wilson as the first text of the semester.1 Produced from anthropological field notes gathered by Wilson in the early twentieth century, Waheenee presents the reflections of an elderly Hidatsa on her childhood in pre–European contact North Dakota, as well as on the changes wrought in her traditional existence by the arrival of Euro-Americans. In class, we discuss the volume not only as a reflection of Hidatsa life in the 1800s but also as an oral document. I ask them: What does Wilson provide us that Waheenee could not? What have we gained from the oral process? Had Wilson not taken notes and transformed them into the document before us, would our understanding of Hidatsa life be less textured? Would our impressions of early North Dakota be different if our only information came from Euro-American commentary? Does the fact that Wilson, a Euro-American man, took notes of translated conversations with a Hidatsa woman and from them prepared an orally based document raise any questions? What other potential problems can the students see within the structure of the text? What questions would students pose to Waheenee herself given the opportunity? While certainly not the best example of oral history, the text provides students with an introductory example relevant to North Dakota, and ideally it jump starts the creative processes necessary for a good interview.	3
Besides assigning readings that help students think about oral history as research method and source of evidence, I intersperse commentary relevant to interviewing projects as we discuss North Dakota heritage. At the end of many discussions, for example, I ask students to ponder what they might have asked a particular historical character had they the opportunity. What information from any given figure would have made her or him a more clearly understood character or rendered an event more understandable? What would they ask Four Bears about the 1837 smallpox epidemic that decimated the Mandan? What could a member of the Second Nebraska Cavalry tell them about the battle of Whitestone Hill? What would they ask a German-Russian immigrant about her experiences? Could A. C. Townley, founder of the Nonpartisan League, help them understand the conditions under which the organization formed? All the while, readings and teaching strategies prepare students to undertake their interviews.	. . .