What is oral history?
The Oral History Centre at the University of Winnipeg defines oral history as "a method of historical and social scientific inquiry and analysis that includes life histories, storytelling, narratives, and qualitative research. Most commonly, interviewers sit down together with narrators to help them tell, record, and archive their life stories or their memories of a specific event, person, or phase in their life."
Below are collections from McMaster University's Health Sciences Archives that contain oral history interviews that relate to past perspectives within health and medicine.
Oral History Interviews at the Health Sciences Archives
Dr. Charles G. Roland (1933-2009) was a physician, writer, medical historian, and the first Hannah Chair for the History of Medicine at McMaster University. He wrote extensively in the field of the history of medicine and conducted hundreds of oral history interviews as part of his research methodology. His transcripts and recordings are organized by the research topics listed below (headings link to external archival database with more details):
- Early Canadian medicine
- Warsaw Ghetto Medical School / Holocaust
- Prisoners of war in Europe (First World War)
- Prisoners of war in Europe (Second World War)
- Prisoners of war in Asia (Second World War)
- Spanish Civil War
- McMaster Medical School
Most of the transcripts for these interviews have been digitized. Please contact the Health Sciences Archives for access to this material.
Dr. Henry Fenigstein (left) standing with Dr. Charles Roland (right) in 1990.
Dr. Mary K. Tremblay (1944-2009) was an occupational therapist, educator, scholar of disability and rehabilitation, and an advocate for disabled peoples. Mary Tremblay was a central figure in the study of the history of disability and rehabilitation, spinal cord injury rehabilitation, war and disability in the twentieth century, aging with a pre-existing disability, disability and rehabilitation policy, and human rights of disabled peoples. A finding aid for the Mary Tremblay fonds can be accessed using this link.
Mary Tremblay interviewed many disabled veterans and their spouses during her career, and these oral histories (audio recordings and many transcriptions) have been preserved at the Health Sciences Archives. Please contact the Health Sciences Archives to set up a researcher appointment to access these interviews.
Mary Tremblay, head and shoulders, 1989
Vicky (Pulver) Bach (1951-2014) was a clinical nurse specialist with expertise in gerontology, medicine, and palliative care. Between 1992 and 1993 she conducted interviews with six nurses who had trained and/or worked at hospitals in Toronto, Hamilton, and Vancouver in the 1930s. The finding aid with more information about these interviews is here (link opens an external archival database).
Please contact the Health Sciences Archives to set up a researcher appointment to access these interviews.
Henrietta Alderson (1915-2000) was one of the three founding faculty members of McMaster’s School of Nursing, which was established in 1946. She remained a professor in the School of Nursing for 28 years. She had a deep interest in documenting the history of the School and collected photographs, newspaper clippings and other documents. Between 1974 and 1975, she conducted dozens of oral history interviews with former students, faculty members, directors, and other administrators. In 1976, she published the book, Twenty-five years a-growing : the history of the School of Nursing, McMaster University. The material she collected relating to the School’s history, including the oral history interviews, is now part of the collection at McMaster’s Health Sciences Archives.
Please contact the Health Sciences Archives to set up a researcher appointment to access these interviews.
