About the interviews

Interviews related to the history of food, food systems, and agriculture have been a mainstay of the Oral History Center research agenda since the 1950s. Interviews focus on several interlocking thematic areas including: social and cultural foodways; restaurants and cuisine; wine and wine growing; distilled spirits; small-scale and industrial farming; and agricultural economics and agricultural education. The interviews listed here typically were not conducted as part of an on-going project. Instead, the majority of these interviews document the singular contributions of individuals to food and agriculture in the United States and the larger global arena. Interviews are added to this subject category as they are completed. 

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Project resources

Additional oral history interview projects with substantive content on the history of food and agriculture include:

Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of California

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream

Natural Resources, Land Use, and the Environment — Individual Oral Histories

West Coast Cocktails

About the project

In the historically swift span of roughly 20 years, support for the freedom to marry for same-sex couples went from an idea a small portion of Americans agreed with to a cause supported by virtually all segments of the population. In 1996, when Gallup conducted its first poll on the question, a seemingly insurmountable 68% of Americans opposed the extension of marriage rights. In a historic reversal, fewer than 20 years later several polls found that over 60% of Americans had come to support the freedom to marry nationwide. The rapid increase in support mirrored the progress in securing the right to marry coast to coast. Before 2004, no state issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. By spring 2015, 37 states affirmed the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, with a number of states extending marriage through votes in state legislatures or at the ballot box. The discriminatory federal Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, denied legally married same-sex couples the federal protections and responsibilities afforded married different-sex couples — a double-standard corrected when a core portion of the act was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 in United States v. Windsor. The full national resolution came in June 2015 when, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution’s guarantee of the fundamental right to marry applies equally to same-sex couples.

The Freedom to Marry oral history project represents the first major effort to document the vast shift in public opinion about marriage, the consequential reconsideration of our nation’s laws governing marriage, and the actions of individuals and organizations largely responsible for these changes. The project produced 23 interviews totaling nearly 100 hours of recordings. Interviewees include: Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry; Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights; James Esseks, director of the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV project; and Thalia Zepatos, the movement’s “message guru,” who worked at Freedom to Marry as director of research and messaging. 

At the center of the effort to change hearts and minds, prevail in the courts and legislatures, win at the ballot, and win at the Supreme Court was Freedom to Marry, the national campaign launched by Harvard-trained attorney Evan Wolfson in 2003. Freedom to Marry’s national strategy focused from the beginning on setting the stage for a nationwide victory at the Supreme Court. Working with national and state organizations and allied individuals and organizations, Freedom to Marry succeeded in building a critical mass of states where same-sex couples could marry and a critical mass of public support in favor of the freedom to marry. This oral history project focuses on the pivotal role played by Freedom to Marry and their closest state and national organizational partners, as they drove the winning strategy and inspired, grew, and leveraged the work of a multitudinous movement.

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Project resources

Freedom to Marry archive website

Freedom to Marry archives at Yale University

About the project

The Oral History Center has taken the project of documenting the history of the University of California seriously since the inception of the Center in 1954. Moreover, the history of education and educational institutions more broadly has remained of keen interest to the Center. The project Education and University of California — Individual Interviews largely contains brief oral histories as well as longer life history interviews not otherwise part of a specific interview project. Instead, the majority of these interviews document the singular contributions of individuals to the University of California and education in the United States and the larger global arena. Interviews are added to this subject category as they are completed. 

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Project resources

Additional oral history interview projects with substantive content on the history of education and the University of California include:

African-American Faculty and Senior Staff

Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of California

Athletics at UC Berkeley

Free Speech Movement

History Department, UC Berkeley

Six Weeks in Spring: Managing Protest at a Public University

About this project 

The impact of the discipline of economics in our society is hard to overstate. Economics structures government policy, guides decision-making in firms both small and large, and indirectly shapes the larger political discourses in our society. Since 2015, the Oral History Center has worked with the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics at the University of Chicago to capture oral histories of selected economists associated with Chicago economics. Economist Life Stories is more than a collection of life histories; it chronicles the history of a scholarly community and institutions at the University of Chicago, such as the Graduate School of Business, the Cowles Commission, and the Department of Economics. It also reflects the achievements of faculty and students in the domains of economic policy-making and private enterprise around the world. Although this project focuses on the leaders and students of the University of Chicago Department of Economics, the Graduate School of Business, and the Law School, we hope to add more stories from economists around the world as the project expands.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support for this work was provided by the Becker Friedman Institute and members of the BFI Council, whose contributions are gratefully acknowledged.

Oral histories

Lester Telser Oral History

Now online, An Oral History with Lester Telser: Beyond Conventions in Economics. Lester Telser is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Chicago. A student at Chicago in the 1950s, Dr. Telser was first a professor in the Graduate School of Business until 1964. Dr. Telser’s life work is the theory of the core, a variant of game theory that involves coalitions of agents as opposed to individuals working to maximize their advantage. He used sophisticated mathematics to study why and how certain forms of markets are organized without appeals to more established concepts in economics. As both a student and colleague at the Chicago economics department, and as a fellow at both the Cowles Commission and the Cowles Foundation, Telser is a key witness to the transformation of the field of economics after World War II.

Arnold Harberger Oral History

We are pleased to launch the next interview in the Economist Life Stories Project: Sense and Economics: An Oral History with Arnold Harberger. This oral history with Arnold Harberger was conducted in seven daylong sessions in Los Angeles from the fall of 2015 to the fall of 2016. Dr. Harberger is the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago, and Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles. He is perhaps most widely known for overseeing the Chile Project, which trained Chilean students in economics who then went on to found programs in economics and take up positions in the Chilean government. However, that story is merely one in Dr. Harberger’s 65-year career in technical assistance and education around the world. He has consulted for the U.S. government, numerous individual nation-states, as well as institutions such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Of equal importance is his career as a scholar, from his training and interest in international trade to his work in public finance, especially project evaluation and benefit-cost analysis. Throughout, this oral history explores his lifelong pursuit of “real-world economics,” research that both draws from and supports economic policy-making. 

George P. Shultz Oral History

Problems and Principles: George P. Shultz and the Uses of Economic Thinking is the first oral history in the Economist Life Stories Project. George Shultz is perhaps best known for his public service. He was appointed Secretary of Labor, the first Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Secretary of the Treasury during the Nixon Administration, and later became Secretary of State during the Reagan Administration. But before that, he was professor of economics and dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. Mr. Shultz talks at length about his years at Chicago, but a thread throughout this life history is the economist’s way of thinking about and understanding the world. Most importantly, from his military service in World War II to his far-ranging policy analysis since he left public life, Mr. Shultz speaks of the importance of moving past rigid ideological positions to work with others to solve concrete problems.

The following interviews in our collection are relevant to the histories of agricultural economics and the New Deal, which are explored in the George S. Tolley interviews:

Cully Alton Cobb: The Cotton Section of the Agricultural Adjustment

Paul Schuster Taylor: California Social Scientist Volume I: Education, Field Research, and Family

Paul Schuster Taylor: California Social Scientist Volume II: California Water and Agricultural Labor

*The Reminiscences of Howard R. Tolley

Thomas C. Blaisdell Jr.: India and China in the World War I Era; New Deal and Marshall Plan; and University of California, Berkeley

*This interview belongs to the Columbia Oral History Project and is featured here to complement George S. Tolley's interview.

Additional oral history interview projects with substantive content on the history of economics:

Commerce, Industry, and Labor — Individual Interviews

Slaying the Dragon of Debt: U.S. Fiscal Politics and Policy

About the project

The Presidio of San Francisco is a new kind of national park. It is home to the spectacular vistas, nature, and programs that visitors would expect, as well as a community of residents and organizations who bring renewed vitality and purpose to this former military post. The Presidio Trust is an innovative federal agency created to save the Presidio and share it with the public.

The Presidio Trust Oral History Project captures new layers of the history of the Presidio. The project complements ongoing archaeological research and fulfills historic preservation obligations through interviews with people associated with the Presidio of San Francisco, for example: former soldiers, nurses, doctors, civilian workers, military families, descendants of Californios and Native Californians; environmental groups; and Presidio Trust and National Park Service employees. The interviews capture a range of experiences, including the legacies of colonialism, stories of service and sacrifice, the role of the Presidio in a range of global conflicts, everyday life on the post, and of how this post became a park. The Presidio Trust and the Oral History Center have embarked on a multiyear collaboration to produce these oral histories.

The goals of the Presidio Trust Oral History Project/Presidio are twofold. First, to create new knowledge about life on the post during peacetime, as well as during global conflicts, that illuminates the diversity of experiences and the multiplicity of voices that is the essence of Presidio history. And second, to share this knowledge with the public in ways that leverage the power of first-person narratives to allow people to see themselves reflected in the Presidio’s past so they feel connected to its present. The kinds of questions we seek to answer include: “How can the Presidio’s military legacy inform our national intentions?” and “How can examining the cultural mosaic of people living in and around the Presidio shape our understanding of the nation?”

There were two parts to this project, which are outlined below.

Life on the Post

The Presidio has served as a military reservation from its establishment in 1776 as Spain's northern-most outpost of colonial power in the New World. It was one of the longest-garrisoned posts in the country and the oldest installation in the American West. It played a key role in Spain's exploration and settlement of the borderlands, Mexico's subsequent control of the region from Texas to Alta California, and the United States' involvement not only in frontier expansion, but also in all major conflicts since the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 13, 1962.

The Presidio served as a U.S. Army Post from 1847 to 1994. This large military reservation at the Golden Gate developed into the most important Army post on the Pacific Coast. Over time its armaments evolved from smooth bore cannons to modern missiles. It became the nerve center of a coastal defense system that eventually included Alcatraz and Angel Island and that reached as far north as the Marin Headlands and as far south as Fort Funston (all these former military lands were later incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area). Eventually, there were five distinct posts at the Presidio, each with its own commander: the Main Post, Fort Point, Letterman General Hospital, Fort Winfield Scott, and Air Coast Defense Station at Crissy Field. Also on the 1,491-acre reservation were a Coast Guard lifesaving station and a U.S. Public Health Service Hospital.

In 1972, the Presidio of San Francisco — then an active installation — was included within the boundaries of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. On October 1, 1994, after the post became excess to military needs, it was transferred to the National Park Service.

The Presidio offers a window into the changes in American society over a span of almost 150 years. The shift from an originally bachelor society where only officers could marry to a community with families and children, advances in modern medicine and health care at Letterman General Hospital, the introduction and expansion of the role of women in the military, the racial integration of the armed forces in advance of American society at large, all are integral to the Presidio's history and reflect American national history. The Presidio is home to one of the nation's finest collections of fortifications, landscapes, buildings, structures and artifacts related to military history.

Narrators include

Diana Brown
Leslee Coady
Rodrigo de la Concepcion
Norman Ishimoto
Steve Voris
 

The Presidio 27

On October 14, 1968, 27 prisoners in the Presidio Stockade broke ranks during roll call formation, sat down in a circle in the grassy yard, joined arms, sang We Shall Overcome, and asked to present a list of demands to the stockade commander that addressed the treatment of fellow prisoners and the conditions inside. Just days before a guard had shot and killed a prisoner, and GIs had taken to the streets of San Francisco in massive demonstrations against the war that came right up to the Presidio’s gates — the first anti-war marches organized by GIs and veterans in the nation. For staging this peaceful protest, amidst the heightened tensions of a country increasingly divided over the Vietnam War, the Army tried the 27 for mutiny, the most serious military offense. The actions of the 27 and their subsequent trials made headlines, shocked the Army and the nation, brought the GI movement onto the national stage, inspired the anti-war movement, catalyzed improvements in U.S. military prisons around the world, and ultimately helped to end the Vietnam War.

In 1968, as more and more soldiers began questioning the Vietnam War, going AWOL (absent without leave) and deserting the military, many flocked to San Francisco’s counterculture. Those who turned themselves in or were picked up by authorities, were brought to the Presidio, the nearest Army post, and held in the stockade. As its population swelled to nearly twice what it was designed to hold, stockade conditions became increasingly chaotic and overcrowded, a ticking time bomb. The average age of the Presidio 27 was nineteen and all were AWOLs. Most were from working-class backgrounds, some came from career military families, and only five had finished high school. Their convictions for mutiny came with sentences ranging from six months to sixteen years. Years later — and only after great personal hardship and sacrifice on the part of the Presidio 27, including years spent in federal prison — the military overturned their convictions on appeal and reduced their sentences. In the end, the appeals judge found that rather than intending to usurp or override lawful military authority, requirements for the charge of mutiny, the Presidio 27, in reading their demands to their commanding officers, were actually invoking and imploring the very military authority they had been charged with seeking to override.

Narrators include

Howard De Nike
Keith Mather
Richard Millard
Randy Rowland
Michael Wong

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About the project 

The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is a special regional district that stretches across both Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. First established in 1934 by Alameda County voters, the EBRPD slowly expanded to Contra Costa in 1964 and has continued to grow and preserve the East Bay’s most scenic and historically significant parklands. The EBRPD’s core mission is to acquire, develop, and maintain diverse and interconnected parklands in order to provide the public with usable natural spaces and to preserve the region’s natural and cultural resources. 

This oral history project — The East Bay Regional Park District Oral History Project — records and preserves the voices and experiences of formative, retired EBRPD field staff, individuals associated with land use of EBRPD parklands prior to district acquisition, and individuals who continue to use parklands for agriculture and ranching. 

The Oral History Center (OHC) of The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, first engaged in conversations with the EBRPD in the fall of 2016 about the possibility of restarting an oral history project on the parklands. The OHC, previously the Regional Oral History Office, had conducted interviews with EBPRD board members, supervisors, and individuals historically associated with the parklands throughout the 1970s and early 2000s. After the completion of a successful pilot project in late 2016, the EBRPD and OHC began a more robust partnership in early 2017 that will result in an expansive collection of interviews. 

The interviews in this collection reflect the diverse yet interconnected ecology of individuals and places that have helped shape and define the East Bay Regional Park District and East Bay local history.

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Related resources

East Bay Regional Park District

Information about this project is coming soon.

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Project resources

Lewis H. Butler video excerpts

On the value of the Peace Corps
On Owen Chamberlain and the genesis of the Ploughshares Fund
On organizing the Pete McCloskey campaign for Congress in 1967 against Shirley Temple Black
On the establishment of an agricultural preserve in Napa Valley, 1968
Experiences in the Nixon administration during the Vietnam War
On determining the mission of California Tomorrow
California Tomorrow: Learning to work as a multiracial, multiethnic organization

About the project

The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement Project was launched in 1996 to capture the history of a remarkable movement by people with disabilities to win legally defined civil rights and control over their own lives. Since then, more than 100 oral histories with leaders, participants, and observers of the movement in the 1960s and 1970s have preserved the living memory of the movement. A rich collection of personal papers and the records of key disability organizations join the oral histories in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, comprising an in-depth research resource for the study of a contemporary social movement which has changed the social, cultural, and legal landscape of the nation.

The project has been funded with two field-initiated research grants from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, a division of the U.S. Department of Education. The first grant (1996-2000) focuses on the movement in Berkeley, California, one of the key cities where models for independent living were developed and disability rights issues defined. The second grant (2000-2003) expands the scope of the project nationwide, with oral histories of leaders from Boston, New York, and Washington D.C. to Texas, Chicago, and Los Angeles. A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts was received in 2004 to fund a project on artists with disabilities. Further interviews on the antecedents, implementation, and impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act were made possible by a grant from DBTAC-Pacific ADA Center in 2006. Interviews for the project were conducted by a joint team of OHC staff, consultants, and community members.

Additional support was received from private donors Raymond Lifchez, Judith Stronach, and June A. Cheit. The Prytanean Society at the University of California, Berkeley, funded the first two interviews done in 1984 and 1985. Special thanks are due Willa Baum, director of the Oral History Center (then the Regional Oral History Office), 1956-2001, who recognized the value of preserving the history of the disability movement and sustained and guided the development of the project.

See the DRILM collection, including oral histories, video and audio clips, donated papers, and photographs. Please note that some oral histories were compiled into volumes, so there are many more oral histories than the number of hits indicated in the search. From this page, you can refine your search further by filling in the fields at the top of the page, or by clicking on and off the categories on the left.

Related resources

Timeline

This project seeks to move beyond debates over the appropriate size of the national deficit and debt by exploring the recent history of federal budgeting. Through a series of in-depth oral histories with key government officials, we plan on historicizing the debt issue by investigating the various contexts in which policy-makers, experts, and public advocates have thought about and sought to improve the nation’s fiscal condition.

See the Slaying the Dragon of Debt: Fiscal Politics & Policy from the 1970s to the Present project website.

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About the project 

The Oral History Center (then the Regional Oral History Office) was one of five oral history programs that worked with the California State Archives to document state policy development as reflected in the legislative and executive branches of the state government and as reflected by others who played significant roles in the policy process of the State of California. The institutions participating in the program were the Oral History Center, the Office of Oral History at UCLA, the Claremont Graduate School, California State University Sacramento, and California State University Fullerton. Only the interviews conducted by OHC staff are listed below. 

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Additional oral history interview projects with substantive content on California political history include: 

Earl Warren in California

Goodwin Knight and Edmund G. Brown Gubernatorial Eras in California

Politics, Law, and Policy — Individual Interviews

Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Era

Women Political Leaders