The Annual Conference of the Oral History Society (OHS 2013)

What is the business of oral history? What is the relationship between oral history and business? Why have institutions and businesses wanted to record their histories? And how have they used their oral history? This conference opens up our traditional focus on community and domestic lives to explore the hidden histories of private companies and business, public institutions, hospitals, universities, museums, public utilities, local and national governmental, campaigning bodies and charities. We would like to hear about what interviews with those who work in institutions and organisations tell us about organisational history and memory, the institutional or educational community, and more. This conference would bring into dialogue historians of business, education and health with oral historians who have been commissioned to work with and within institutions to create and document their oral history. We would like to hear from those, too, who work in public history, scholars of business memoir or biography, and, ideally, institutional commissioners or archivists, and interviewees themselves. We also invite honest and practical sharing of experiences of negotiating with private sector funders or large institutions, and of working with those with high public profiles. The conference will additionally encourage discussion of how these experiences relate to working with the media and the general public, which are often part of the package of an institutionally-framed oral history.