Oral History Interview

Oral History Questions Below are some suggested questions to ask your interviewee. Questions for your interviewee: 1. What is your personal history? For example, what was your family life like? What type of schooling/education did you have and where? 2. Please describe a typical day in your life as a child. 3. If you had an agricultural background, please give a short description of what your daily work was like and explain how that influenced your life? Are you still involved in agricultural work? 4. If you have any experience/familiarity with a traditional Southern folk art (like quilting, pottery, basket-making, carving, dancing, singing, playing music, etc.) or with a folkway or folk tradition (like heritage-specific traditions, folk medicine/remedies, etc. A couple of examples: (1) In the community where my father grew up, it was thought that to cure a baby of colic, the baby should be passed through a horse collar in a certain way. (2) One of my grandmothers was known in her community for having the “healing talent” of cooling the heat of burns. 5. In your opinion, what areas of life in the South have changed the most during your lifetime? Try to give details about 3 of the following topics. Feel to have your interviewee respond to more than 3 topics if you are both willing and time allows. • Family life. • Discipline. • Role/Importance of religion. • School. • Childbirth. • Employment. • Attitudes about race. • Technology. • Entertainment. • Medicine. • Dating. • Holidays. • Traditions. • Treatment of elderly. • Attitudes about government. • Attitudes about gender. • Clothes. • Industry. • Agriculture. • Urban development. • Population changes. 6. Can you name at least one aspect of life in the South that has changed for the better? For the worse? 7. What, if any, aspects of life in the South have remained the same? 8. What, if any, aspects of life in the South today would you like to see changed and what would that change be? 9. In your personal opinion, do you think the South will continue to maintain a separate identity from the rest of the nation or do you think the South will lose its distinctiveness? Explain.