The History Center in Tompkins County - Women's Voices Oral History Collection

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Women's Voices Oral History Collection

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WOMEN'S VOICES IN TOMPKINS COUNTY

Oral History Collection

The History Center in Tompkins County’s Oral History Program collects, preserves, and amplifies the stories of our local community.

The Women’s Voices in Tompkins County Oral History Collection was established in 2021 to highlight interviews and stories in our audio archives that explore the experiences of women in Tompkins County. The topics of these interviews explore a wide range of experiences, community, culture, and the stories shared may have been guided by the specific project the interview was recorded for. As of 2021 this collection includes over 60 interviews recorded between 2008 and 2020. This collection will continue to expand as our Oral History archives continue to grow.

Selected clips from these interviews can be heard in the Story Vault exhibit at The History Center Exhibit Hall as part of the Breaking Barriers: Women's Lives & Livelihoods exhibit (July 2021-February 2022). Researchers may listen to full recordings and access transcripts and related learning materials by scheduling an appointment in the Research Library.

Visit our Exhibit Hall to hear oral history clips in our Story Vault exhibit!

WOMEN'S VOICES ORAL HISTORY FINDING AID

Leslyn McBean Clairborne was interviewed in 2019 as part of the Local Sisters of Change Oral History Project coordinated by the Generation to Generation Youth Ambassador program at The History Center.

WOMEN'S VOICES: ORAL HISTORY PROJECTS

2019 - Local Sisters of Change

In collaboration with the Dorothy Cotton Institute and the Cornell Anthropology Department, undergraduate students from Cornell University explored the racial and social justice work of nine local women through oral history interviews.

Trigger warning: Some interviews include experiences with white supremacy, anti-Black sentiment, domestic abuse, death, and gender-erasure.

LOCAL SISTERS OF CHANGE FINDING AID

2019 - HERSTORY - Generation to Generation

Young women from the Tompkins County community explored local women’s history, and each interviewed an adult woman in the community about their lives and work. A project of The History Center Youth Ambassadors.

Trigger warning: Some interviews include experiences with sexual assault, death, child abuse, child sexual abuse, the AIDS epidemic, drug use, and drug addiction.

HERSTORY FINDING AID

Stop and Listen to HERstory - Oral History Project

The History Center in Tompkins County · Stop and Listen to HERstory - #TompkinsWomen

**PLEASE NOTE** Not all of our oral histories are available on SoundCloud or other remote streaming services. If you would like to listen to a specific interview please reach out to our archivist at archives@thehistorycenter.net to access a specific interview from our collections. Not all interviews are available yet for public listening per the interviewees request.

Audio clips may NOT be reproduced without permission.

Generous support for processing these collections came from the two year grant "Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility" coordinated by the Museum Association of New York and funded through the Institute of Museum & Library Services from 2020-2022.