February 12, 2003::No.154
University Unveils New Center for
Oral and Public History
Cal State Fullerton has recorded the region’s
oral history for the past 35 years. The university will
mark this milestone Friday, Feb. 14, with a grand opening of the
Center for Oral and Public History, formerly known as the Center
for Oral History. The event is from 2-5 p.m. in Room 360 of the
Pollak Library.
Introductory remarks and a historical perspective
will be presented at 3 p.m. by Arthur Hansen, center director and
professor of history. Cal State Fullerton graduates Stephanie George
and Sharon Owen will address the center’s future directions.
Attendees can tour the center, view the award-winning
publication “Song of Anger- Tales of Tule Lake” and
see the unveiling of the newest book in the Michi Nishiura and Walter
Weglyn Multicultural Publication Series, Behind the Orange Curtain:
Religious Pluralism in a Southern California County.
The center’s mission is two-fold: “With
respect to oral history, it is to develop, archive and make available
to the public significant oral documentation pertaining to the personal,
regional, ethnic, political and international histories that link
Southern California to a globalized world,” said Hansen.
The center is expanding its activities on campus “in
correlation with the perceived needs within the Orange County region,”
noted Hansen. These include historical editing, archives and record
management, family/community studies, documentary film production,
policy analysis and high-technology media.
The center is rooted in the CSUF Oral History Program,
which was founded in 1968 as California’s fourth university-based
oral history program. “It began under the joint aegis of the
History Department and the library’s Department of Special
Collections, but since 1973 has been operated exclusively by the
History Department, with support from the College of Humanities
and Social Sciences,” said Hansen.
The center houses more than 3,000 tape-recorded interviews,
many of which have been transcribed edited, indexed and bound as
individual library volumes or complied into published anthologies.
All of the material is available to the public and has been widely
utilized in theses, books, films and other formats. The center’s
resources are detailed in a printed catalog that will be available
online in the future.
Noted publications produced by the Oral History Program
include “Harvest of Hate,” about the Japanese internment
camps, and “The Young Nixon,” a sampling of 200 oral
history interviews about Richard Nixon’s pre-political years
that was widely reviewed in both commercial and academic presses
and made the university a repository for Nixon materials.
Additional information about the center’s history
and current projects is available at: http://coph.fullerton.edu.
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Media Contacts: |
Arthur Hansen, at 657-278-3170 or ahansen@fullerton.edu
Kathleen Frazee, at 657-278-2491 or kfrazee@fullerton.edu
Susan Katsaros, Public Affairs, at 657-278-4854 or skatsaros@fullerton.edu
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