Oral History Current Work

Council on Foreign Relations Visual Oral History Project The Columbia University Oral History Research Office (OHRO), in partnership with the Columbia University Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), has begun an institutional oral history of the Council on Foreign Relations. OHRO and ISERP will create an oral and visual documentation of the Council's history from the perspectives of its current and former leaders. Interviews will be conducted with up to thirty people, and at least twenty people will be videotaped. ISERP will oversee the research for the project, which includes a historical analysis of national public policy and the origins and impact of globalization. OHRO will direct the interviewing and provide the organizational structure of the project, including all processing of tapes and transcripts. The purpose of the project is to allow those who have been most influential in the Council�s history to address their involvement and perspectives on American foreign policy and foreign affairs. The project will also document the evolution of the Council from within, identifying the goals of the Council from its earliest years, as well as the obstacles the leadership of the Council faced in critical phases of growth and expansion.
Atlantic Philanthropies Oral History Project: The Oral History Research Office was recently awarded a grant of $1.1 million dollars to conduct an oral history of the Atlantic Philanthropies [AP], including an interview with its founder Charles F. Feeney. The AP project will give researchers and scholars an opportunity to explore and learn about the decision-making processes, the outcomes of grant-funded programs, and the international philanthropic and business practices of the philanthropy and its founder and his closest associates. The interviews will yield approximately 560 hours of material. A team of skilled oral historians who are experts in philanthropy and business history will collaborate to complete the project. Amy Starecheski, a lead interviewer and educator for our September 11th projects, is the director of research and an interviewer for the project. Myron Farber, also an interviewer for the September 11th projects, and a former reporter for the New York Times is working on the project. Additional interviewers are Ronald J. Grele, director emeritus of the Oral History Research Office, as well as the nationally renowned oral historian Charles Morrissey and the internationally acclaimed audio documentary producer Steve Rowland. Mary Marshall Clark will conduct lead interviews for the project.
Columbia Women in Law Oral History Project: Through a very important collaboration between the Oral History Research Office and the Columbia School of Law, the Office has sponsored the creation of a project documenting the experiences of women who attended the Columbia Law School from the 1930s through the recent past. The project now includes over thirty life histories with women who have achieved distinguished careers in law as well as other professions, based on their experiences in the Columbia Law School. Included in the group of women interviewed are many women who have effected changes within the law that have directly benefited other women, and others whose experiences of discrimination were successfully challenged through the legal system. The list includes Bella Abzug, former congresswoman, as well as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice.
The September 11, 2001 Oral History Projects: Between 2001 and 2005 the Oral History Research Office conducted nearly 500 interviews which document the events and aftermath of September 11, 2001. These interviews comprise four seperate projects: Telling Lives, Narrative and Memory, Response and Recovery, Public Health.
Robert De Vecchi, President Emeritus of the International Rescue Committee.
Herbert Gans, noted sociologist, educator, and author.
Rhoda Karpatkin, President Emeritus of the Consumers Union.
Roy Neuberger, financier, modern art collector, and patron of the arts.
Alton G. Marshall, former president of Rockefeller Center and executive officer and secretary to Governor Rockefeller.
John Kluge, businessman and philanthropist.
Mary Marshall Clark recently conducted a twenty-hour video history of John Kluge, who has a long career in media history, in addition to an active life as a philanthropist. Mr. Kluge is an alumnus of Columbia University, who has created a Kluge scholarship program for minority students and Columbia University. He has also contributed significant funds to scholarships and fellowships at the Library of Congress.
The interviews will be edited and available for students, scholars and the public at large in 2007.
William T. Golden, science policy expert, businessman and philanthropist.
Mary Marshall Clark and Ronald J. Grele have conducted an extensive history of William T. Golden, who created the office of science advice under Harry S. Truman. Golden, an environmental philanthropist as well as a supporter of many cultural, medical and scientific institutions in New York City, has been a key advisor to many presidents and advisors on science policy. He was a member of the Atomic Energy Commission and has contributed to the development of international dialogues on science, energy and the environment.

Recently Completed

Archibald Cox, former Solicitor General.
This is the first in a series of interviews with United States Solicitors General and Attorneys General funded by the Supreme Court Historical Society and available in its entirety online.
Interviews with Geraldine Ferraro and Pat Schroeder for the Women in American Politics Project.
Early History of the AIDS Epidemic in Philadelphia, a five-interview project donated by Alexandra Oster.
The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) Project, consisting of interviews with pioneering psychoanalysts Daisy Franco, Lillian Gordon, Myra Kurshan, and May Fine Lipson.
John B. Oakes, New York Times editorial page. This history was funded by a grant from the New York Times Foundation, as were interviews with journalists Joan Konner and Joby Warrick for the John B. Oakes Project.
Bluma Swerdloff, psychiatrist. This history was funded by a grant from the New Land Foundation.
Interviews with James Robinson and Charles Oldham, civil rights activists and members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), part of a larger series donated by Sheila Michaels.
Carnegie Corporation of New York Oral History Project: The Oral History Research Office was awarded a grant in the mid-1990s to document the history of the Carnegie Corporation from the 1970s through the present. A previous oral history project conducted in the 1960s documented the first fifty years of the Corporation’s activities. The current project has produced 200 hours of audiotape and 100 hours of digitally recorded video with leaders of the Corporation, as well as significant grantees. The Corporation supported the use of video to expand the value of oral history as a public as well as scholarly medium. A subsequent grant supported the documentation of South African leaders working against apartheid through a series of videotaped interviews. These interviews were edited into a conversation about the internal resistance to apartheid called “South African Voices.” This project may also be consulted online.

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