Ohio History Journal

MARC LEE RAPHAEL

 

Oral History in an Ethnic Community:

The Problems and the Promise

 

Oral history, whether viewed by proponents or detractors, is rarely

taken lightly. Barbara Tuchman, for example, has charged that "with

the appearance of a tape recorder, a monster with the appetite of a

tapeworm, we now have, through its creature, oral history, an artificial

survival of trivia of appalling proportions."¹ In contrast, Saul

Benison, among the ablest practitioners of the art of oral history,

asserts that "the memoir that emerges as a result of this process

[interviewing] is a new kind of historical document. Although it has

been created by a participant in past events, it is also the creation of

the historian-interviewer who has in fact determined the historical

problems and relationships to be examined.^"2 Benison, well aware of

charges like Tuchman's, knows too that "this mutual creation

contributes to both the strength and weakness inherent in oral history

memoirs."³ My own goal in this essay is to touch upon the strengths

and weaknesses of oral history, and to illustrate these with brief

excerpts from a few of the more than fifty tapes (two hours each)

which now comprise the Columbus Jewish History Project.

Oral history obviously involves much more than tape recording

reminiscences and observations. Initially, the historian must identify

those topics where eyewitness accounts can contribute to our

understanding of the subject, and then identify those persons whose

relationships to the topics were intimate, whose memories are sharp,

and who are willing to discuss their experiences. Such topics might

include the founding of an ethnic institution, the visit of a

controversial personality, the relationship of various sub-groups to

the total community (divorced persons, faculty, organizations), crime

(Prohibition violations, gangsters, petty thievery), the development of

 

 

Dr. Raphael is Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University.

 

1. Quoted in Larry Van Dyne, "Oral History: Sharecroppers and Presidents, Jazz

and Texas Oil," Chronicle of Higher Education Review (December 24, 1973), 10.

2. Saul Benison, "Reflections on Oral History," American Archivist, XXVIII

(January 1965), 73.

3. Benison, Tom Rivers: Reflections on a Life in Medicine and Science (Cambridge,

MA, 1967),ix.

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Problems of Oral History                                         249

 

an ethnic business, day-to-day living (suburban housewives), the

immigration experience, controversial actions in the community,

changing premarital sexual relationships, and decision-making within

small groups (families).⁴ Especially useful are persons, trends, and

events largely described without benefit of conventional

documentation. Such a program of topics offers the historian an

opportunity to interview those "who made history" as well as those

used in the making of history, the leaders of communal organizations

and institutions as well as those generally considered not worth

interviewing because they "do not know anything important."⁵

Neither "anonymous" persons nor unique topics, however, can

compensate for a well-prepared interviewer. Skillful preliminary work

enables the interviewer to spur the respondent's memory and to

probe sensitive areas with precision, to resolve accidental

inconsistencies and to see relevant historical relationships, to possess

a definite and vivid conception of the problems that concern

researchers, and to so fascinate the respondent that he is determined

to recall experiences. Preparation should include extensive primary

and secondary source study, abundant interview experience (both in

quantity and in the subjects to be discussed during the interview), and

a preliminary or exploratory interview (to inform the respondent of the

procedure, evaluate the range and depth of his knowledge, and

determine his willingness to record).

The preparation for an interview is the key to a successful

interrogatory. The time spent by the interviewer inspecting the

written record, or lack of preparation, is what differentiates a valuable

oral history memoir from uncritically recorded reminiscences. It is

not always possible to imitate Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger's

interviewer, who utilized over 20,000 letters as preparation,⁶ but it is

necessary to acquire a respondent's papers and digest them prior to

the interview, to check with corroborating witnesses who might

provide checks on what the respondent says, and in general to learn

as much as possible about the subject area and the respondent.⁷

4. For an analysis of a group project to document, with oral history, a controversial

event, see Irene E. Cortinovis, "Documenting an Event with Manuscripts and Oral

History: The St. Louis Teachers' Strike, 1973," Oral History Review (1974), 59-63. On

the application of oral history interviews to the study of decision-making within small

groups, see Bulletin of Cornell Program in Oral History, I (July 1967); Ibid., II

(December 1968); Ibid., II (July 1969); and Ibid., II (December 1969).

5. Thoughtful comments on the history of anonymous persons are in Henry Glassie.

"A Folklorist Thought on the Promise of Oral History," Selections From the Fifth and

Sixth National Colloquia on Oral History, eds. Peter D. Olch and Forrest C. Pogue

(New York, 1972), 54-57.

6. Benison, "Reflections on Oral History," 73.

7. On the relationship between records and recollections, see Charles T. Morrissey.

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250                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

Background research takes many forms. Prior to interviewing the

owner of the only remaining kosher meat market in Columbus, we

located and spoke with the proprietors of three kosher meat markets

which once had competed strongly with the still operative market.

This enabled us to probe more deeply than otherwise would have

been possible and to explore what actions had led to the survival of

only one kosher market. In another case, following a preliminary

interview with several immigrants who had come from eastern

Europe before World War I (and prior to the full-length interviews),

we obtained the complete passenger lists of their ships from the

National Archives. Preparation for another interview session involved

gathering, from the city directories, the respondent's annual

addresses over the past sixty-seven years. Thereby we were provided

with the opportunity to question the respondent about rents,

mortgages, boarders, mobility, and neighborhoods in some detail.

Yet another interview demanded our compiling a list of a pugilist's

professional fights, a task requiring the use of the local sports pages

over a twelve-year period. Such research, of course, does not

guarantee that interviews will not be disappointing, wasteful, or

occasionally frustrating. It does, however, maximize the potential

inherent in the oral history technique, and it minimizes the large

number of reminiscences recorded merely on the assumption that

something preserved is equivalent to something of value. In short,

there is no substitute for an interviewer who has done his homework.

The art of conducting the interview itself is mastered no less

tediously. One study of President John F. Kennedy's press

conferences concluded that a lengthy question calls forth a lengthy

answer, while a short question elicits a short response-which

suggests that the length of the question is quite relevant in one's

preparation.⁸ But the greater danger is not that the interviewer will

ask a long question, but that he or she will frame either a double

question or an imprecise question. When one is listening to the

answer to a double question, it is difficult to ascertain whether the

answer applies to the whole question or to one part of it; when the

respondent hears an imprecise question, the confusion is even

greater. A good rule is to try limiting the question to a maximum of

two sentences-one sentence which states why one is asking the

question and a second sentence, ending in a question mark, which

asks the question. The only task then remaining is to listen.

"Truman and the Presidency-Records and Oral Recollections," American Archivist,

XXVIII (January 1965), 53-61.

8. "The Art of Interviewing," The Third National Colloquium on Oral History, ed.

Gould P. Colman (New York, 1969), 23.

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Problems of Oral History                                      251

 

This is easily said; it is not so easily done. First, one must become

used to long periods of silence. Then, one has to endure often lengthy

reflections on subjects of no interest to the interviewer (but perhaps

of interest to other historians). Both to pay attention (so as not to ask

about the same subject again) and to keep from dozing can be a

grueling task. Third, even the most suggestive questions often elicit

one-sentence answers. Here, an occasional turning off of the

recorder, chatting informally, and then attempting again to record the

discussion, usually relaxes the respondent. Finally, if the interviewer

has not established rapport before asking the tough questions, the

silence may be endless. Good rapport will encourage candor,

minimize reticence, and even provide enjoyment for the respondent.

Generally, the longer the interview lasts, the more easily the

respondent will communicate. By beginning with the least sensitive

topics and gradually escalating to the central subject, the careful

questioner will profit greatly. Early in one interview, we asked a

respondent directly about Mr. X, the president of a local synagogue

during World War I. The interviewee refused to say anything about

the subject because "his family is still here." More than an hour

later, however, the word "bathhouse" triggered a comment about the

same gentleman:

Bathhouse. [Pause] The president of the synagogue next door to the bath was

at that time a man who was a complete ignoramous. He didn't know any

language whatever. He had a mixture of half Russian, half English words,

half Yiddish words, but he couldn't read or write. Complete illiterate but he

was apparently a rich man and therefore he became the president. Rabbi G.

taught me in order to become a teacher over here you've got to write your

application in three languages. I wrote the application in these three

languages and handed them to the president and the president took it and

turned it upside down, couldn't read it. It was a wilderness, no question

about it-the cultural wilderness over here.9

Similarly, a rabbi who served in Columbus for more than forty years

agreed only at the very end of an interview session to discuss his

predecessor:

Before Passover, rabbis at that time [Prohibition] were given permission to

buy wine for Passover, and Rabbi X would sign the applications of the

committee or people who said they were members of the committee, to get

enough wine for Passover, and unfortunately he signed certificates which

were more than applications for Passover wine. It so happened that some of

this Passover wine was found in grills and bars . . . bootleg wine utilizing the

Passover prerequisites as an excuse. There was almost a Watergate scandal

in Columbus but as a number of other incidents will verify, in the course of

9. Marc Lee Raphael, Oral interview with Dr. Benjamin W. Abramson, 1974, Ohio

Historical Society, Columbus.

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252                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

crises in the Jewish community in the past, some of the finest leadership,

from all congregations, joined hands in covering-up and in having that person

removed from town-and he left in a hurry. We were always able to use the

good auspices of prominent people to cover-up. So that covering-up is not

such a bad thing.¹⁰

Even with a carefully constructed questionnaire and solid rapport,

an interviewer's biases can cause problems. The most helpful balm is

for the questioner to know his biases and to try hard to conceal them,

for respondents tend to "size-up" the questioner-age, appearance,

sex, vocabulary, actions, and credentials are all important stimuli

projected by interviewers-before responding.¹¹ For example, an

awareness that a respondent supported Governor George C. Wallace

for President in the 1972 campaign led to formation of a stereotype of

the person in our minds, so that we tailored our inquiries to our

assumptions and failed to ask significant questions. On the other

hand, excessive admiration for and adulation of the person

interviewed may have its drawbacks, for the interviewer often

becomes lured into the respondent's frame of reference and finds

dialogue, disagreement, and gentle confrontation impossible. Another

difficulty is that many questioners provide the respondents with

subtle cues which keep the answers within the frame of reference the

interviewer has established, and thus they fail to consider alternative

answers. An interviewer may minimize this danger by using the

language of the respondent whenever possible and by creating an

environment which is neither highly structured nor chaotic. It is

important that the interviewer develop a self-consciousness about

what is affecting the respondent, including the impact the questioner's

biases (verbal and physical) have upon the interview session. The

perception of the interviewer by the respondent will, in large

measure, determine the style, content, length, and quality of the

responses.

One might be tempted at this point to ask at least two questions: Is

not interviewing a remarkably expensive method of doing research,

and is it reasonable to expect the amount of skill and training

discussed above? While there can be no complete substitute for an

interviewer who has done the requisite homework and prepared well,

interviewers are made, not born. Any reasonably intelligent person

 

 

10. Raphael, Oral interview with Rabbi Nathan Zelizer, 1974, Ohio Historical

Society.

11. On stimuli projected by the interviewer, see James E. Sargent, "Oral History,

Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the New Deal: Some Recollections of Adolf A. Berle, Jr.,

Lewis W. Douglas, and Raymond Moley," Oral History Review (1973), 92-109.

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Problems of Oral History                                     253

 

can become an adequate interviewer with only moderate amounts of

time and practice. At worst he or she will play the role of a recorder

rather than an interviewer, for many respondents know what they

want to relate and what they do not. If this happens, and it will, let

the novice interviewer-recorder sit forward, keep moving, and avoid

dozing off, for respondents chosen to fill gaps in written records have

much to tell even without a dialogue. Finally, the cost of transcribing

ought not to be allowed to loom too large. The tape itself has

tremendous value and can be utilized adequately even without

transcripts. The unavailability of transcripts, no more than the

impossibility of the ideal interview, should never deter an oral history

project.

In any serious oral history program, interviewee responses are

transcribed and edited, a process which can produce additional

problems. The goal of transcribing should be a faithful reproduction

of the oral record; any deviation from this record is an error. Yet

good transcribers find it difficult not to "improve" the record while

transcribing. They are, for example, eager to insert periods in the

midst of run-on sentences (few respondents pause at the end of a

sentence), change verbs that do not agree with their subjects, and

omit "meaningless" words and phrases (such as "you know").

Stylistic attractiveness in a transcript, however, should always be

subordinated to accuracy, even when, as in the following selection,

the transcript almost cries out to be "improved":

Q: You were, then, thirteen when you came over here. Did you go

immediately into business or did you go to school?

A: Mrs. Katz took me over to Fulton Street School that September when

school opened and she registered me and she named Harry and when they

asked me what my name was my Yiddish name was Herschel and of course

Yiddish names were, you know, she wouldn't think of giving the principal my

Yiddish name and she translated it right away and she named me Harry. And

so I registered at Fulton. In those days public school was up to the eighth

grade so in about two years I, they put me in the first grade got me a bridge

table and a chair and I was sitting with those little kids in the first grade with

six-year-olds and within two or three weeks they discovered that I belonged

someplace else. And the way they discovered it was that they were beginning

to teach the kids two and two is four, you know, stuff like that, on the

blackboard so the teacher put down several figures and I went over to the

blackboard and added it up in Yiddish and I might have have put down the

total on the bottom and she was shocked that I knew that much coming out

from the wilds of Russia. She then went ahead and put on a larger problem

and I added that up in my mind in Yiddish to myself and put down and she

gave me an exam right there in front of the class for addition and subtraction

and by that time she went to the office and called in the principal and the

principal stood there with her hands folded up like this watching me do my

math on the blackboard and I was already at division and doing it all in

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254                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Yiddish and they didn't know it so I went to the fifth grade right there, the

next week, but I could not speak yet and of course I couldn't write .. .12

The best protection against over-anxious transcribers is the

preservation of the oral history tapes in public archives. Not only are

the original words preserved, but the historian can utilize the voice,

age, articulateness, style, and speed of response of the respondent as

additional clues to the value of the interview. One warning: voices

eventually disappear even from tapes! Voices recorded on the finest

tape at the slowest speed (1 7/8) and then stored in a file drawer or

cabinet will disappear completely in a few years. The best antidote is

a fast speed (thus more tape and greater expense), proper storage (at

a proper temperature), and the guidance of a professional oral

historian or historical society.

How does the historian weigh the veracity of this new kind of

historical document jointly created by the participant and the

historian-interviewer? Forrest C. Pogue anticipated this in his study

of General George C. Marshall,¹³ so when Marshall asked him how he

could be sure that what he was telling Pogue in 1957 was not

something he had made up recently, Pogue replied, "about every

tenth question I give you is on something to which I already know the

answer from your testimony in the 1940s or letters you wrote at this

particular time."¹⁴ Still other interviewers provide internal checks

and clues for historians by including questions which test a person's

memory, asking whether the accounts being given are from direct or

indirect evidence (was the respondent an eyewitness?), and returning

to the same subject, from different angles, repeatedly.

Additionally, almost every answer by a respondent provides at

least one piece of specific information which can be verified, so that

the entire response can be judged in terms of the correct or incorrect

facts. The existence of Judge Samuel L. Black's court on Scioto

Street more than seventy years ago gives added credence to the fol-

lowing response:

Q: What was your first job in America?

A: Selling newspapers. I had a stand on the corner of State and High Streets.

I couldn't speak a word of English, you know, and I was yelling, I had a

pretty good voice, and I hollered so loud, in those days you weren't allowed

to holler like that, of course, I didn't know anything about it, so all of sudden

there was a whole circle around me, trying to listen to me and all of a sudden

I see a big beautiful wagon come over, and that was the patrol wagon, a horse

 

12. Raphael, Oral interview with Harry Schwartz, 1974, Ohio Historical Society.

13. Forrest C. Pogue, George Marshall: Education of a General (New York, 1963).

14. James MacGregor Burns, "Keynote Address," Selections from the Fifth and

Sixth National Colloquia, 37.

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Problems of Oral History                                       255

 

wagon in those days, and they came over and tried to tell me something and

there was somebody right next to me trying to explain it to me what it was,

that they want you to sing the way you sang before, so I tried to sing it in

loud voice, you know, and they put me on the wagon and took me to the

police station. I didn't know anything about it, what it meant, I said, "Gosh,

what wonderful country the United States is, you sing and then they give you

a buggy ride." The police station was on Scioto Street, I remember distinctly,

and the judge was Judge Black and they took me before the judge and they

asked me the same thing, that I should perform the singing, the same that I

did over there, and I did that and I'm telling you I'll never forget that, Dr.

Raphael, and that judge laughed and laughed and told the police, "Tell him to

go back and peddle his papers."¹⁵

The historian who makes use of oral histories must be aware not

only that people do forget, but also that they lie. Sometimes a

respondent is more anxious to say what he thinks the interviewer

wants to hear than to report what actually happened; other times to

deny behavior which was socially acceptable then but not now (or, to

claim actions honorable now but of no consequence then);

occasionally to perform for an invisible, future audience as well as to

magnify, distort, and exaggerate his own role in an event (one

respondent took credit for founding the Columbus Torah Academy

Day School-two years before he had arrived in Columbus!); and

frequently to present a coherent picture which, however, does not

correspond to reality because the respondent had reconstructed

enormous amounts to fit in with what was remembered.¹⁶

How can the historian sort out coherence from correspondence,

reconstruction from remembrance, fact from fiction?¹⁷ To a large

degree, this is the task of the interviewer, who must have the

potential historian in mind as he prepares the interview, and must

attempt to test the validity of the evidence through preliminary

research, use of internal clues and open-ended questions, and the

querying of several individuals about the same subject. One must

treat the oral history transcripts as raw source material which needs

to be examined with the same care as any other source. Therefore,

the historian must seek to discover how the report's reliability was or

was not checked, correlating and cross-checking it with more

conventional sources, and remaining continuously aware that an oral

history consists merely of the perception of the informant. Under no

 

15. Raphael, Oral interview with Jacob Pass, 1974, Ohio Historical Society.

16. On remembering and reconstructing, see Frederic C. Bartlett, Remembering

(London, 1932), and Ulric Neisser, Cognitive Psychology (New York, 1967).

17. On separating fact from fiction, see David F. Musto and Saul Benison, "Studies

on the Accuracy of Oral Interviews," Fourth National Colloquium on Oral History, ed.

Gould P. Colman (New York, 1970), 167-81.

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256                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

circumstances should the historian suspend any of the normal critical

canons of historical research.

Furthermore, folklorists have reminded us that far more than the

"facts" are of use, especially since most respondents have less

interest in what the interviewer is seeking than in relating, and

amplifying, what is relevant to them. Legends, romantic memories,

exaggerations, anecdotes, family sagas, jokes, and folklore of all

kinds, are rich sources of information in and of themselves, and after

they are enjoyed and utilized can be peeled away to expose

underlying truth, to provide a self-portrait of the respondent, or to

compare with more "factual" data.¹⁸ The following are examples of

responses which might provide information for the folklorist-historian

as well as the traditional historian:

At the end of Yom Kippur there was always a hassle as to what time to blow

shofar. Those days, our shut, as well as the other two orthodox synagogues,

were within a two minute walk of each other, and I can recall toward the end

of Yom Kippur each year a person would come in and say "Still davening

[praying]? The other shuls have already blown shofar." Whereas, it turned

out, these same people went to the other shuls and said to them, "You still

davening? Beth Jacob has blown shofar."l⁹

According to the information passed down among the old-timers, the

congregation was founded following a Jewish service on Yom Kippur at the

old Agudas Achim sometime in 1901, when a number of Hungarian Jews were

congregated on the steps of the synagogue while services were going on. One

of the officials of the congregation came out and began to chastise them for

congregating, and talking, and making noise, and he used the phrase, "You

hunkies, will you either get out, leave the premises of the synagogue, or come

in and sit like men should." Now this, of course, antagonized the Hungarian

Jews, and they founded the Tifereth Israel Congregation, known then as the

First Hungarian Hebrew Church.²⁰

My brother arrived in Columbus and, not being used to toilets, started to use

the fences. It didn't work out as he was always chased away. So he went to a

house and knocked on the door to ask where he should do it. The woman,

hardly awake, thought he was the milkman and handed him a bottle. He took it

and filled it; she took the bottle and gave him a dime. He ran home and wrote

to me in Russia, "Come here fast, Jacob, a fortune is being pissed here. It's a

golden land."21

18. See Richard M. Dorson, "The Oral Historian and the Folklorist," Selections

from the Fifth and sixth National Colloquia, 40-49, and William Lynwood Montell,

"The Oral Historian as Folklorist," Ibid., 50-53. On the general ethnography of

communication, see Dell Hymes, "Models of the Interaction of Language and Social

Setting," Journal of Social Issues, XXIII (1967), 8-28.

19. Tape recording from Jack Greenwald, Denver, Colorado, 1974, Ohio Historical

Society.

20. Raphael, Oral interview with Zelizer.

21. Raphael, Oral interview with Pass.

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Problems of Oral History                                      257

 

Sam [Levinger] went to Spain in January of 1937 and the news of his death,

which actually occurred in September, reached the family in October 1937.

Something probably went out of mom and dad's life with the death of this

oldest son. Elma kept close touch with many of our high school friends as a

way of still trying to recreate the days when Sam had been his most

exhuberant, and the house was always full of noisy, articulate,

politically-minded groups of high school students. One of the hardest things

for her was when Sam's dog became so old and feeble he had to be killed.

The dog had sensed Sam's going away and death as different than many other

absences. He had become quite senile and yet would wander back to the high

school and wait there until the children came out to see if Sam was still there.²²

 

Those who attempt to write local ethnic history cannot overstate

how fragmentary the written records might be and how useful

interviews can be in both supplementing what does exist and

replacing what does not exist. Saul Benison's thoughts provide us

with a final reminder not of the problems, but of the promise which

resides in this very new and fragile source:

As a result of new sound and visual communication, much of the detail of

human experience, which was previously put to paper because of the

exclusive nature of print and writing communication, has today been sapped

from the record and become fleeting and ephemeral. Such experience, if

preserved at all, is only to be found in the memory of living men. It is this

paradox of simultaneous plenty and scarcity in contemporary records that in

large measure defines the tasks of those who work in oral history.²³

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22. Tape recording from Leah Levinger, New York, 1974, Ohio Historical Society.

23. Benison, Tom Rivers, ix.

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