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E.D. Lange, center, and his orange pickers work on the Klokke Ranch in Placentia in 1908. Mule skinner George Vinson drove the mule train, and the "mules were mean!" notes a caption on the photograph. |
Years later, when de Graaf was a professor at Cal State Fullerton and his students asked if they could also use this approach for research, he granted his permission. One day, one of the students brought in a new-fangled device – a portable tape recorder.
Before long, several history students began recording interviews, eventually leading to the establishment of an oral history program.
“Oral history is a specific technique for obtaining historical information and insights,” said de Graaf.
“What distinguishes public history from history in general is the idea that thousands of people are involved in historical research: curators, editors, publishers, archivists, researchers, anthropologists, documentary filmmakers and so on. These were all people outside the realm of what we traditionally thought of as history. Today, public history has been integrated into most standard history programs.
However, we still wanted to acknowledge its role so in 1998, the Center for Oral History took on a new name: the Center for Oral and Public History.”
After several years of serving as director intermittently during the ’70s and ’80s, Art Hansen, professor emeritus of history, was appointed director for the center, where he has served consecutively since 1991. Under his leadership, the center has expanded its network and updated its collection.
Over the past decades, the center has been involved in working with the state of California on numerous volumes relating to state history and governmental practices. The center has also focused on the history of the California State University system as well as Cal State Fullerton. Presently the center is collecting information universitywide in preparation for the institution’s 50th anniversary.
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