Introduction

Abstract

This volume of oral histories features the voices of Americans who lived through some of the most critical events shaping the nation’s history since the Civil War. Their memories bring history alive, lending an unequalled immediacy to the past. In the process, they give us a glimpse of a new kind of history. Conventionally, we tend to think of History with a capital H: a narrative of great events—wars, elections, and enterprise—decided by the prominent people in charge—generals, presidents, and CEOs. And in most history textbooks, generalizations drown out the particular, the voices of ordinary individuals are lost, and what we remember are the words and actions of the famous (and infamous). This volume seeks to illuminate the particular experiences of ordinary Americans and how they participated in and observed history in the making. Here, they speak to us about themes familiar and unfamiliar: about migration, family life, discrimination, labor, leisure, social movements, depression, and wars. In so doing, they reveal the many ways in which individual experience and historical events intersect. On the one hand, they show us how individuals live through, and affect, great historical events. And at the same time, they aid our historical understanding by providing texture and depth to historians’ generalizations.