Last month PBCA Communications Director, Paul Grant was awarded a grant from DC Humanities, Oral History Collaborative Partnership to collect personal narratives from early Penn Branch families. The project, ‘We Are Penn Branch DC’ will focus on the stories of individuals who became residents of Penn Branch between 1945-1968.
About DC Humanities
The DC Humanities Oral History Collaborative Partnership funds projects that explore and preserves Washington, DC life, history and culture through interviews with the people who have lived it. Created in 2016 in response to a growing need to capture unrecorded Washington history, the DC Oral History Collaborative documents and preserves the stories and memories of DC residents as communities experience change and as residents age. The Collaborative increases awareness of existing oral history recordings and gives residents the training and financial resources they need to conduct new interviews. HumanitiesDC specializes in working with grantees who want to create new recorded stories or who want to dig into the archives and tell an old story with a new twist.
Why Oral History is Important?
Oral history is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. Oral history is both the oldest type of historical inquiry, predating the written word, and one of the most modern, initiated with tape recorders in the 1940s and now using 21st-century digital technologies. These personal stories help fill gap between the major historical facts that we know and how real people experienced and understood these moments. As the Washington, DC area and continues to experience significant political, cultural, and economic change over the past 70 years, it is critically important we preserve the memories our most senior, and long-time residents and understand how the city’s evolution has impacted them.
The entire collection of stories will be archived in the permanent collection of the DC Public Library and the PBCA Executive Board is planning to host a public exhibition of the stories, once pandemic restrictions on public gatherings are released. Interviews will be filmed through October 2021 and participants will receive a $75.00 honorarium for their time.
To share your story, please contact:
Paul Grant | E-mail : [email protected] Tel.: (202) 888-3236
To learn more about HumanitiesDC, please visit:
