Oral History and Photography

This book collects original research essays to explore the diverse uses of photographs and photography in oral history, from the use of photos as memory triggers to their deployment in the telling of life stories. The book's contributors include both oral historians and photography scholars and critics.

Alexander Freund is an associate professor of History and holds the Chair in German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg. He published Aufbruche nach dem Zusammenbruch, a history of German migration to North America after World War II. He is the co-director of the University of Winnipeg's Oral History Centre, co-president of the Canadian Oral History Association, and co-editor of the Association's journal, Oral History Forum d'histoire orale. Alistair Thomson is a professor of History at Monash University. His publications include Anzac Memories: Living With the Legend (1994), The Oral History Reader (1998 and 2006, with Robert Perks), Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants (2005, with Jim Hammerton), and Moving Stories: An Intimate History of Four Women across Two Countries (2011).

PART I: REMEMBERING WITH IMAGES * Mary Brockmeyer’s wedding picture: exploring the intersection of photographs and oral history interviews / Alexander Freund with Angela Thiessen * “When I was a girl . . .”: women talking about their girlhood photo collections / Penny Tinkler * Imaging family memories: my Mum, her photographs, our memories / Janis Wilton * Remembering, forgetting and feeling with photographs / Lynda Mannik * Listening to pictures: photographs and oral history among Inuit youths and elders / Carol Payne * Using press photographs in the construction of political life stories / Martina Schiebel and Yvonne Robel * PART II: MAKING HISTORIES * Piercing the punctum: Oral history and the “prick” of photography / Kathleen M. Ryan * Family photographs as traces of Americanization / Maris Thompson * Family photographs and migrant memories: representing women’s lives / Alistair Thomson * From witness to participant: making subversive documentary / Alistair Bersch and Leslie Grant * Photographs from the Shoebox / Janet Elizabeth Marles * Committed eye: photographs, oral sources, and historical narrative / Ana Maria Mauad