publichistoryinternship

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week fifteen

This was my last official internship week! It’s a bit bittersweet, as like most of us in the department, I’m ready for a summer break, but I also loved my internship this semester. Luckily for me, the Veterans History Project has offered me a job now that my internship is over! I still need to get all my ducks in a row to make it official, but I am planning on continuing to work with this project. I have gained some really valuable insights and experiences from this experience and I’m so excited to continue my work. Part of my reasoning for accepting this job was the amazing people I have worked with and the accepting environment they have created. The team I work with has been so kind to me and has been so willing to teach me aspects of the job would help my professional development. The entire team has been amazing, but in particular Jessie Oldham has been an absolute angel. She’s understanding, professional, and just such a genuine lovely person. I look forward to working with her further in the future, as well as my other amazing PIs and coworkers at VHP. This internship has also aided me significantly in my professional development. I have been able to establish meaningful connections with Veterans and history professionals both inside and outside of the History Department. I have also gained new skills through this process, most significantly oral history skills. I originally sought out this internship because I was considering a career in oral history and wanted to try it out firsthand before I continued further down that path. I had read books, but I had no actual experience in the field. This gave me insight into what a career in this path would actually look like, and at the end of my internship I can say I came away with an interest in possibly pursing this path down the line. It was such a gratifying experience to connect so personally with the Veterans I worked with and I loved that I could provide a public service in the way of just listening to their stories. I have heard from a lot of the Veterans I have worked with that they feel ignored by the general public in terms of their experience in the war and they really appreciate what the program does. I am a big believer that understanding leads to empathy and this program has not only aided my professional experience, but has also allowed me to understand and empathize with the Veteran experience better personally. Even if I do not decide to pursue oral history or Veterans history, I will take the empathy I developed through this experience into what ever my next venture in history will be. This is less of an ending note, because I am continuing to work with the VHP, so I’ll wrap up with what we have going on next week. I’ll be going to a meeting on Wednesday with VHP to the Lake Nona VA medical center to talk about a possible exciting collaboration project! 

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week fourteen

This was a very busy week for the history department, which meant it was a bit slower for VHP. It’s nice that we all work on projects within the department, so when one of us is busy, we are ALL busy- it’s great to coordinate schedules. I started the week by attending the Holocaust Conference Keynote Speaker speech, by Christopher Browning. This was an insane moment for me, as well as probably every one else there, to be in the presence of such a prolific historian. We studied his work in Dr. Lyon’s History and Historians class and he was one of the first scholars whose name I remembered even after the class ended. It was so interesting to hear about his journey as a historian and how he created his theory of Ordinary Men. I went with a friend who is in the math department to this event and he told me he did not understand how much of a history rockstar Browning is until he saw all the professors’ hands shaking when they went to ask questions- which I thought was really funny. On Wednesday, we had our event at the Dr. Philips Center with the Veterans Legacy Program. For this event, I wrote one of the monologues that was performed, so I had worked closely with the production up until this point. For the actual event, we got to the Dr. Philip Center at 4:00 to set up and then watched the production at 7:00. It was incredibly touching to see these stories brought to life. The monologue I wrote was on Lawrence Bowden, a fallen WWII Veteran who was buried in St. Augustine National Cemetery. Bowden was struck down in the Pacific Theater of the war, killed by malaria. I wrote my monologue from the perspective of his sister, who lost her older brother while her two younger brothers were still fighting. I highlighted this idea of feeling guilty for missing someone who died for a larger cause and the expectations put on how a gold star family member is “supposed” to grieve. After the monologues, I participated in a Q and A panel. This panel featured one of the high school actors, two of the MFA theater students who worked on monologues, and three of the VLP staff members who wrote monologues, including me. Most questions were directed towards our research process, with some asking about the emotional aspect of our work, working with people who died so violently so young. After the event, we networked with the attending members and cleared up after the event. Looking forward, we are looking at the possibility of doing more events with theater organizations with the history department. Next week is the last week of our internship, so I have been talking with our PIs about what the next steps look like for me with my VHP work. I’ve been talking to Jessie about the possibility of continuing my work over the summer, so I’m excited to see where this takes me! 

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week thirteen

This week, I had an interview with a Vet who was a former U.S. Navy SEAL. This was my first interview with anyone working in special ops, so it was interesting to get this new perspective that I had not heard before. This was also the interview with my friend’s dad, so it was a unique experience working with someone who I knew outside of their military service already. I could definitely feel there were parts of his service he was holding back on, and I think that was partially due to the fact he knows me primarily as a friend to his son, which I think is reasonable. Alternatively, it was really easy to establish a rapport with him because I already knew him, which usually takes a little bit to build up with the Veterans I interview. We talked primarily about his work within the military after his deployment, working with mental health care and Veterans. The department he worked for looked to establish stability and integration of mental health services within the base. This looked like giving spouses more information about when their partners were going to be deployed and where, which helped bring down military divorces. It also looked like instilling mental health professionals as part of the community on base, not separating them from the people serving, so that the people in combat learned to trust the mental health professionals and were more likely to seek help if they needed it. We discussed the idea of the Veteran network, and how there is a bond between brothers even if two Veterans have never met each other. This can be vital when a Vet is going through a mental health crisis, as they have an automatic branch of people they can reach out to. The way the person I was interviewing described it its, that ninety percent of the time, if a Veteran or active duty combat member reaches out to one of their brothers for help- they will be there for that person. The more recent years of wartime have some of the highest rates of suicide in active combat personnel, so taking these steps is incredibly important in making sure those serving are able to come home. I am also working an event within the history department this weekend, at New Smyrna Beach. This is one of the department’s History Harvests, this one with the New Smyrna Beach Heritage Day Celebration at the New Smyrna Beach Museum of History. I will be working with Dr. Lester on this project, who does a lot of super interesting public history projects within Orlando, so I’m excited to see what this harvest will entail. I’m not sure yet if I will be doing oral histories or scans for the project, as both are needed. I have experience in oral history with my internship, so that’s what I did for my last history harvest, but I am also interested in learning how to scan because I have never done that before.  

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week twelve

This week was an interesting exploration into learning what happens when nothing goes as planned! I had two interviews this week, neither showed to their scheduled interview time. I was also sick this whole week, so everything was just a bit of a mess for me. In that sense, the missed interviews were a bit of a blessing- I was able to rest up and my interviewees will be able to reschedule and see me at my best self. Jessie and I waited for a little bit just in case our interviewee showed up and in this time, we talked a little bit about experiencing speed bumps like this in a job. This kind of thing happens all the time and you have to roll with the punches, otherwise you will get too stuck on one piece of the puzzle and never be able to move forward. On a more productive note, this upcoming week I have an interview with a Veteran I know. One of my best friend’s dads is a Veteran, so I talked to him a little bit about the program and he agreed to come in and talk to us a bit about his service. I’m excited to talk to him because he’s a super interesting person and I know he’ll be nice to me! At the same time, there are some weird positives and negatives to knowing the person I’m interviewing that I have to think about when I come to the table. On the positive side, I know his military history better than I would most Vets, so I can easily construct my questions around this narrative. I also do not have to worry about him being rude or having issues with him, as I know this Vet already. At the same time, having these preconceived notions about him can hurt the interview process. I know him completely through the stories my friend tells me about him, so in my head I have this notion already of what his military service was. This is likely a different story of service than he would generally tell an interviewer, as these are the stories he is telling as a dad and a Veteran, not just a Veteran. I am working to try to include this narrative into my line of questioning without taking away from the possibility of him going down different routes, telling me a possibly much different story than the one I know. I also have to consider the preconceived notions he has about me. For most of my interviews, I try my best to remain professional and a blank slate, the point of the interview is for me not to be interesting because I don’t want to distract from the story of my interviewee. For this though, I have to consider that he may want to include me more conversationally than my usual interviewees. I also have to consider the level of professionalism I bring to this interview. Since I already know him, I will have to work to create a professional image for myself more than I normally do in interviews. 

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week ten

This week I faced my first (small) speed bump in the interview process in my time with VHP so far. I had an interview scheduled on Tuesday with a Vet who had not filled out her biodata sheet, so I was planning to do it fully off the cuff. On Tuesday, my supervisor and I stayed on the Zoom for about ten minutes to be sure our client was not going to show up, but the Vet had sent us an email to reschedule about five minutes into when our Zoom meeting was supposed to be, so we knew she was not going to show. Oh well, Semper Gumby! This was good experiencing in working in on the fly interview work for me and I knew at some point I was going to have an interview that did not show up for their appointment, so I’m not too put out from the whole thing. On a more interesting note, Sarah Boye and I did an interview on Friday with a former staff member at Sunland hospital. The interview was conducted at the Sanford Museum. Sunland was a hospital in Pine Hills, meant for mentally and physically handicapped patients. This hospital had a history of mistreatment and was closed down because of a lawsuit, left abandoned for years. The man we interviewed was a grant manager for the property, so he did not work directly with the patients, but he told us about the work he did with the hospital as well as telling us about the physical building and the staff. This was a super interesting interview to do, as it was outside my usual Veteran interview work. The Sunland scandal as a whole is a delicate subject, so I am trying my best as an oral historian to approach the situation with grace and compassion. Our interviewee got emotional at one point, which is something I have never dealt with before, but no doubt will be dealing with frequently as I go on with oral history work. I think I’m decent at dealing with emotion, I have some experience in my former work at a homeless shelter, as oftentimes people would get emotional telling me their living situations. However, I am not a terribly emotional person myself and I definitely believe this is an area I could improve on. This next week is Spring Break for UCF, so I will not be conducting any VHP work in the near future. Lined up though, this week one of my Vets scheduled an interview. He’s one of my best friend’s dads, so I’m very excited to talk to him about his military service. He also works now in mental health care for Veterans and I know this is an issue he is passionate about, so I am interested in talking more about that with him. I have never interviewed someone I know personally, so this will be a new fun challenge to take on. I will have to level the professional interviewer version of myself with the version he already knows- which I think mostly consists of me going to his house to eat tacos and roast marshmallows in the backyard with his son! 

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week nine

This week, I had one Veterans interview pretty early on in the week, which was really nice because we had a big meeting for VLP later in the week! This was my first real interview with someone who didn’t serve more recently, so it was interesting to have to switch some of the language I had been using that was more Global War on Terror specific. He also served in the Navy, which was my first Navy interview. I have a soft spot for that branch so it was really fun to talk to him and understand the more day-to-day workings of what being on a ship was like for him. He was a UCF alum and currently works for UCF, so it was amazing to be able to talk to a fellow knight about his service. I am also prepping this week for Sarah Boye’s event this weekend with the Greenwood Cemetery. This is my first History Harvest I’ve worked so I’m really excited to see the ins and outs of this event. I’m going to specifically be working with the oral histories section, because for my VHP work I have been trained on how to do these. I think it’ll be a cool perspective to do public history in a different format within what I’m already doing, as currently I’m only interviewing Veterans, but for this I will be doing oral histories of everyone from the public. I’m specifically focusing on anyone who has connection to Sunland Hospital in Pine Hills. This was a hospital for disabled people, mostly children, that has a reputation for not treating their residents in a humane manner. Originally it was a hospital specializing specifically in tuberculosis patients, but the hospital shifted over once cases dropped. The hospital was closed due to its issues with how they treated their patients, as well as also being subject to a lawsuit due to this maltreatment. Some of these children are buried in Greenwood Cemetery, so I think this is really great to bring light to their stories, even if some of them are really painful. This week, to prep, I have been going through documents, mostly newspaper stories, that Sarah shared with me to better understand the Sunland Hospital. This is in order to better understand the people I will be interviewing and I’m really grateful for the prep Sarah has given me. Sarah and I also are going to be interviewing a man who worked at the hospital, which should be a fascinating interview. He won’t be able to make it to the History Harvest, because he’s in his eighties, so we are setting up to interview him at the Sanford Museum. I also have two new leads on possible Veteran interviews, both with parents of my friends. I’m excited about this because I’ve heard about their service from their kids, so to hear it from their perspective will be really compelling. One of these Veterans specifically works with mental health in Veterans in his life now, so I’m excited to explore this topic with him. 

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week 8

This week for my public history internship, I conducted two interviews. Both were with younger Vets, who both served during the Global War on Terror. It was super interesting to compare and contrast the opinions of people who were serving during the same conflict on their own service. The first interview was with a Vet who had served in the Army, working with translation in their service. They were super open about their own mental health, as well as mental health in the military, which was great because a lot of Vets have a hard time opening up about those struggles. Jessie also talked to them about doing a Veteran’s Voices event next November, because they expressed interest in working more with the project. The second Vet I spoke with was also in the army, serving more recently and working within the U.S. for his service. He provided an interesting perspective, as he was positive of the military as a whole, but had a negative experience with the way things were run in his time in the service. He did not believe his commanding officers managed troops efficiently and mentioned that they were often unnecessarily cruel. This is one of the parts I find most interesting about working for VHP, as I think oftentimes when I watch documentary with Veteran interviews, they chose Veterans for the interviews who are either very pro-military or anti-military. With the VHP work, I get to see more of this gray area- as well as telling the story of those who may not be highlighted in larger pieces of media. It gives me a much better and more well-rounded view of military life and history as a whole. It also gives me insight into why oral histories are so essential to understanding history, looking at the common man as opposed to “big man” history. I’ve also found I’ve started picking up on certain words and phrases that the Veterans use in their interviews, which is really great for me as an interviewer to be able to use the correct phrasing as well as being able to understand what the Veteran I’m interviewing is talking about. One of the ones I noticed in my work was a phrase that two of my Veterans have used in their interview- MEPS, which means Military Entrance Processing Station. The first time a Vet used this word, I didn’t know what it meant, but by the second time I had picked up on it. I hope as a work more with Veterans I pick up on more small moments like these, that will make it more fluid for me to communicate with the Veterans I work with. That’s one of the nice parts of working with living Veterans- I get to see what the current popular phrases and lingo are. In my work for VLP, I only work with deceased Veterans, so I don’t get to communicate with them personally, I only know them though records about their lives. 

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week seven

This week was my first real Veteran interview! The Veteran I interviewed was super nice to me.  He did not throw me any curve balls or ask any questions I couldn’t answer or respond negatively to any of my questions, which was super great for a pretty easy first interview. He served for about 30 years, working mostly during the Global War on Terror. He was in the Marines and after his time there, transitioned to the Army. I had a list of questions pulled up on the side of my computer screen, and he kept answering the exact questions I had written down without me even having to ask, which was GREAT. One of the parts of interviewing I was most stressed about was not having enough questions and filling empty space, so it was a huge relief this Veteran was so talkative. This was a great experience in working with Veteran’s history, as well as with oral histories. It is leading me to ask questions about what I want to do after undergrad- looking at working with hands-on history where I would be talking to people every day- versus working in the archives. My job with VLP mostly works with archival work, as most of the Veterans we work with are dead, versus my internship with VLP requires me to interact with Veterans face to face. There are pros and cons for both sides of this- the interviews definitely get me out of my comfort zone, but they also make me a bit anxious! There’s a huge social aspect of working with oral histories- which is fun and scary at the same time. I’m also working with the history department this weekend for another project- the Pine Castle Pioneer Days festival. I’m working with Sarah Bousfield, who works for the Pine Castle center, as well as with me at VLP. We set up today in the park- we put up our tent and talked about what the weekend is going to look like- also Sarah got me a pastry that was SO GOOD, love her. Basically, this weekend I’m going to be teaching little kids about how to do old-timey games. We’re going to stack boxes in a wagon, where the kids are going to have to decide what has to go and what stays to make sure everything fits in the wagon- this will give them an idea of the struggle of those who traveled in a wagon and how oftentimes, they had to leave important items behind. We will also be playing a hoop game, where the kids hit a hoop with a stick- which I think the kids will have a lot of fun with. This will be a good opportunity in networking, as there will be a large amount of people from different areas of the Orlando historical scene here, specifically those who work in public history. It will also be a good experience in understanding what a public history job entails. 

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week six

This was my first week getting ready for my real interview process! We met on Monday to go over the week’s deliverables, and I was given two Veterans to write questions for, who's interviews I will be conducting. The first interview will be next Wednesday and the second interview will be the following Wednesday. I was also assigned another transcription project as I have completed my previous one, but this is more to put on the back burner until I have a slow week with interviews to get my hours. I also am working on questions for Sarah’s dad, as she will be conducting an interview with him that I will be sitting in on. This week, to prepare myself for my first real interview, I did a mock interview with Jessie and Dr. Gannon. This was a zoom interview in which I interviewed Dr. Gannon about her military service and Jessie sat in on the process. Jessie started by explaining to me the brief introduction she usually gives in these interviews, telling the Veteran that she will be active listening, but she does not want to respond too frequently, as not to interrupt their story, as this is their interview, not ours. Jessie then stepped away and I began asking Dr. Gannon interview questions. I had a prepared list, but I also ended up riffing off of the questions she asked me, more frequently than I expected. I started with early life, asking her about her childhood and her decision to join the military. We then moved into her service, and this is where much of the questions I did not come prepared with came from. I took parts of her answers and asked her to expand on them, such as her experience as a woman in the military. We then talked about her exit from the military and her experience in graduate school, and from there her experience at UCF. We talked about how her experience as a Veteran shapes her work and the communities formed around Veteran experience. Dr. Gannon told me ahead of time she was going to throw me curveballs, so there was a couple moments in the interview of her testing how I would bounce back from certain lines and reactions. Her first one was getting off topic, talking about a TV show instead of her service, so I had to work to bring the attention back to the subject of her time in the army. Her next one was answering questions with short answers, so I asked follow up questions so she would expand. She also worked with getting off topic in a politic sense- bringing up the idea of “woke-ness” and how it was evil- which if you know Gannon, this is especially funny. For this, I did not contradict her, just got her back on topic and continued with the interview without sharing my opinion on the matter. It went well, Gannon and Jessie told me I did a good job, which was very sweet, so I feel pretty confident going into my next interview. The only difference I’m worried about is the fact that I won’t know this person- I know Gannon, so that definitely skewed the interview process a little bit. 

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week five

This week was mostly dedicated to events we will be doing in upcoming weeks. I will be moving from transcribing interviews to working on the actual interview process, which, while daunting, is exciting. My first step in this is working with Jessie and Dr. Gannon on a mock interview. For this, I will create questions after reviewing the information I have about Dr. Gannon’s service. Since Dr. Gannon is actually a Veteran, this will be very similar to what an actual VHP interview would be like. She has told me in advance that she will throw some curveballs at me so I will know what to expect in an actual interview. This process involves a lot of thinking on my feet, being able to shift the conversation if necessary. I do have some experience in this, as I worked with a lot of homeless Vets with my work over the summer and oftentimes there was need to steer the conversation in a certain direction. Many of the people I worked with were suffering from mental illness or addiction issues and could often get fixated on a topic and obsess over it, or easily get upset or have reactions we would consider over-the-top. These issues unfortunately affect our Veteran population at a large rate and I think it will be really important for me to consider what the Vets went through when I am speaking to them, as well as provide them with comfort. My job is to get information, but it is also to make the people I am interviewing comfortable and not push them too hard in ways that will effect them negatively psychologically. The second part of my preparation is writing questions for an interview I will be sitting in on. This interview will be conducted by Sarah, so I will be able to see what an interview should look like before I conduct one on my own. I will be writing questions for Sarah’s dad, so this is a nice interview to start with because I have a general idea of who he is and I know he will be nice and easy to work with. He did say to Sarah he didn’t have all that much to say, but Sarah thinks that once she gets him talking and start asking questions he will open up. For this process, one of my main sources of inspiration for questions is past interviews in the VHP teams drive. This is helping me to get an understanding of what VHP is looking for in terms of interview questions and what would be appropriate to ask. From here, I work to create questions that are more specific to the Veteran I am working with- in this case, Sarah’s dad. This involves crafting questions that relate to his specific military service, life experience, and career after service. I think there is also a good possibility he will be interested in talking about his children, since Sarah is conducting the interview. 

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week four

This week, I began my work with a panel over the weekend. This was part of my work with the Veteran’s Legacy Program, but we tabled for multiple institutions within the History Department. This included the Florida France Soldiers Stories Project, as well as the Veterans History Project. We had a good amount of engagement with those at the panel about our programs, with some interested in possible oral interviews with VHP. One of the women I talked to expressed interest in reaching out to the program for an interview with her father, who served. I also spoke at a panel during the conference, promoting history department projects. The panel I worked on was entitled “Learning from Florida’s National Cemeteries: Researching Veterans Experiences,” chaired by John Lancaster and featuring presenters Isabella Love, Sarah Bousfield, and Luci Meier. Sarah presented a panel about her work entitled “History in 3-D: Interactive and Digital Approaches to Research and Teaching Veterans History.” This explained her work with Veterans history, making Story Maps to use as teaching tools. Luci presented “Valorizing Female Veterans: Researching the Diverse Experiences of Women in the Military.” This was a paper on her work with female Veterans, which is her area of expertise. It was really touching to see the care she speaks about these women with, it is nice to know even after all these years, there is still someone looking out for them. The panel I presented was called “Bridging the Gap: Transferring Academic Research Skills into the Workplace and Nurturing Compassion through Cemetery Research.” This paper explored how I transitioned from undergrad work into the research field, as well as my experience with cemetery research. I cited my internship in my presentation- “But for some of the other places the VLP has brought me- I’m interning with the Veteran’s History Program this semester because of the love I found for working with Veterans through this program. I found that I really enjoy connecting with Veterans and this is a way for me to expand my skills from VLP into a new section of history, working with oral histories.” This panel gave me an opportunity to workshop my presentation skills, as well as meet and network with people in the field. It also provided me with an opportunity to explain the programs we offer for Veterans and Veterans history at UCF to people outside of UCF, bringing this work to a new population of people and possibly finding people who would be willing to give oral interviews. I also continued my work from last week with transcriptions for my first Veteran. This included working with the transcription, the AV log, and interview abstract. I also talked to Jessie in our weekly VHP meeting about starting my work with interviewing Veterans. I am currently arranging a mock interview with Jessie to train before I work in the field, interviewing actual Veterans. This is great, because I feel a lot more comfortable working with Jessie first so I get an idea of what an actual interview would be like. 

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week three

This was my first week working with content for the internship, after my week of initiation and introduction to the work. We started out the week with a meeting with the staff- we just generally went over our assignments for the week and what we would be doing in the next week. Jessie sent over a name for me to work with, so for this I transcribed an interview, worked on the AV log, and worked on the interview abstract. Another student had started the transcript already, which was great because I could get an idea of what the work should look like before diving headfirst into the transcript. The Veteran interview I worked with was super interesting, this was my first time looking at an interview with the eyes of an oral historian, which was a new process for me. I found I picked up new information, different parts stood out to me. One of the biggest changes was looking for distinct points in the interview in which there are topic changes, as I have to note those in the transcript. The Veteran served in Vietnam, where he took part in a dog handler unit. He spoke so affectionately about the dog he served with, Cap, which was A) very sweet and B) a new perspective on oral history, it was interesting to see him talk about this dog as if he was a brother-in-arms. Unfortunately, he lost his dog in a battle that also resulted in him getting shot multiple times. He ended up being medevaced out and taken to a couple different hospitals, where he eventually recovered from his wounds. He continued to serve, specifically opting to work with dog training again, before he left the military and worked as a police officer. He also was dedicated to continuing the legacy of those who passed during his time in service. He searched for family members of the deceased, as well as the medevac crew that helped him out and ultimately led to his survival. Along with VHP, I work in the department for the Veterans Legacy Program, and a large portion of what we do is contributing to keeping the memory of deceased Veterans alive, so it was really touching to see a Veteran working so hard to keep memories alive. It was also interesting from an oral history perspective- most of what I’ve read about the Vietnam War has been either very positive or very negative- not much in-between. This makes sense, it’s what sells books, big opinions on a deeply controversial war. I’m specifically a big fan of Tim O’Brien who does not have a very positive outlook of the war and whose writing is pretty anti-war in general. This interview gave more of a neutral perspective on the war, he did his duty and gave his story- he did not have a lot of remarks on his personal opinion on the war. I’m sure as a work more with VHP, I will see more variation of opinion in these interviews. 

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week two

This week was my first real introduction to what I’ll be doing in my internship. On Tuesday, we had a meeting with the whole staff where we talked about the mission of the project and what we would be doing this semester as a whole. On Thursday, I met individually with Jessie, who oversees part of the Veterans History Project. This was to review what I would be doing specifically as part of the project this semester. I will be transcribing interviews, as well as doing a lot of the back end paperwork for this project. I’m honestly really looking forward to this, I like doing tasks like this that require a routine and it’s nice to do something that does not requires as much brain power as my work for the Veterans Legacy Program. It also gives me experience with the oral histories through watching them multiple times before I get into the field of oral history, so hopefully this will make that less daunting when I reach that point in my career. In addition to this work, I read a book this week that aided in my work with oral histories and the project. It’s called The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich. This book gave me greater understanding of how to conduct oral histories, as well as why they are so important to our understanding of history. The book follows Alexievich as she meets with Russian women who fought in WWII, collecting their experiences both in the war and their reintroduction of society after the war. This book was especially important because many women, as well as the Russian government, tried to cover up the women’s service after the war. It was a man’s place to be in the war, and many women who did talk about the war or could not let go of the experience would be shamed by the public. In addition to this, many women found it difficult to find husbands after the war, as the men were kind to them during the war, but after did not want the reminder of marrying their fellow soldiers. This brings a new perspective to war itself- oftentimes thought in the cultural lens as a man’s game, even still. Oral histories are deeply important because it oftentimes brings in views that are largely ignored by academia. The people who are able to write books of their experiences are often in positions of power, so by bringing the average person’s voice to the surface, it gives a better perspective of the situation one is studying. This is one of the main reasons I was interested in studying oral history in the first place, being able to give a voice to those who are often underrepresented in history. This is especially important for this project, being able to understand wars through the people who actually fought it, versus reading an account written by someone outside of the event. 

[publichistoryinternship]

week one

Hi All! My name is Bella Love, I’m a UCF undergraduate student majoring in History with minors in Literature and Pre-Law in the Humanities. I currently work in the History department with the Veterans Legacy Program. I’m finishing up my first year with the program and during this time I have gained experience in research, presentation through my work at panels, and one-on-one experience with experts in my field. In addition, I have found an emotional connection with my work through VLP, it’s a really lovely experience to find work that is so meaningful and fulfilling. This internship I am beginning this semester is with the VHP, or Veterans History Project. I will be working under one of my VLP bosses, Dr. Gannon, which I’m excited about because I already know I enjoy working with her. I sought out this internship because I am interested in exploring the world of oral history. It is potentially something I want to look into during grad school and possibly after I graduate as a career option. This will be my first experience working one-on-one with Veterans for UCF, as at VLP, we only work with deceased Veterans’ stories. This is slightly daunting, but also exciting because I will get to explore a new avenue of Veteran’s research. This will also be different for me because while VLP works with more recent wars as well, most of my work has been on WWI and WWII. Working with living Veterans means I will gain more experience with those who have fought in conflicts such as Korea, Vietnam, and the Global War on Terror. Over the breaks, I work at a homeless day center in Sarasota, which a large amount of Veterans frequent, and I have found from that that I enjoy the direct conversation that comes from that interaction. I have also gained skills through working there in interacting with those who have mental health or addiction issues, which would be beneficial in possibly working in the future with the oral histories of Veterans who had a difficult time adjusting to civilian life when they came home. I enjoy oral histories as well because of the nature of the medium. It is more accessible to a wide variety of people, as opposed to a textbook or academic text which can often be wordy and dense. I am passionate about brining history to a wider audience, so working with oral histories would make history work available to people outside of academia. I hope to get experience with oral histories out of this internship to determine a career path I would like to pursue in the future. This would also help me decide if I want to continue working in Veterans history, which is my plan for when I graduate. I also hope I learn more about the logistics of the research involved in creating oral histories, from the breakdown of how to write questions to the process of the interviews and creating the final product.