Congressional Oral History Sites

The House of Representatives' Office of History and Preservation has just made posted its oral history website, which contains the first batch of staffers' and families' oral histories (a highlight is a discussion with Cokie Roberts, both of whose parents served in the House.) The site contains transcripts, contextual information, and a YouTube channel with audio and video of the interviews.

The overdue, and welcome, House oral history site complements the Senate historian's site, which has made available to the public a string of extraordinarily rich interviews with a wide array of former Senate staffers.

Staffer oral histories are especially useful for those of us who study the House, since the personal collections of former House members tend to be much less comprehensive than those of senators.

And, of course, this sort of work is especially vital given current employment trends in the academy. As History Departments around the country eliminate or"revision" beyond recognition faculty positions in the topic, the study of U.S. political history will increasingly fall to historians employed by the U.S. government.

I should note that I have worked in a variety of capacities with both OHP historian Matt Wasniewski and Senate historian Don Ritchie.