Carrying on the Legacy of the California Odyssey Project at California State University, Bakersfield – by Chris Livingston

By Chris Livingston, California State University, Bakersfield

In 1979, California State College, Bakersfield was awarded a special projects planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for “Rural Americans in the Depression: A California Odyssey.” This was a multi-year project where six oral history interviews were conducted with those who migrated from the Midwest to California during the Dust Bowl Era. The planning grant led to another proposal that was submitted to the N.E.H. in May of 1980 for additional interviews. The result was the creation of “California Odyssey: The 1930s Migration to the Southern San Joaquin Valley.” A key component of this project was to train student assistants to conduct and edit interviews. 

This year marks the 75th anniversary of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Set in the camps and fields of California’s Southern San Joaquin Valley, the book highlights the living and working conditions of the “Okies.” To commemorate the anniversary, California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) has planned a variety of events including scholarly talks, art exhibits, and movie screenings, and will culminate with a scholarly conference in November 2014.  

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this celebration is the renewal of the oral history program here at CSUB. For the spring quarter the Historical Research Center at the Walter W. Stiern Library hosted a 10-week seminar about the oral history process. We recruited students who were also enrolled in the History Department’s Historical Writing Course. This gave students the opportunity to integrate primary resource material into their own research. A total of seven students were trained in project planning, ethics, interview techniques, transcription best practices, and digital preservation. One of the goals for the seminar was to assess the California Odyssey Project and add new perspectives to the historical record. The seminar will be taught again in the fall. 

During the seminar students conducted five interviews. One of the interviewees migrated from Oklahoma. A second interviewee was the first born child in California to parents of Dust Bowl migrants. The remaining three did not migrate during the Dust Bowl but interacted with migrants and witnessed how they were treated. In the fall we plan to interview minority groups who were also displaced by the Depression but whose stories were not captured in the California Odyssey Project. 

Finally, as our university transitions from a quarter to semester system, the History Department has developed a public history certificate which will include a semester length course on oral history and will be taught by oral history librarians from the Historical Research Center. This will be a great opportunity to expand our program into other areas of oral history research as well as to train a new generation of oral history professionals. 

Links

California Odyssey: The Dust Bowl Migration Archives (http://www.csub.edu/library/SpecialCollection/Dustbowl/index.html) 

CSUB Celebrates the Grapes of Wrath (http://www.csub.edu/ah/grapesofwrath/) 

Conference: The Cultural Legacy of the Grapes of Wrath (http://www.csub.edu/ah/grapesofwrath/Conference/index.html)