Southampton Oral History Archive

Title: Southampton Oral History Archive

Description: Southampton City Council's Oral History Unit was set up in 1983 under the Museums section to document the social history of Southampton. It now employs 2 full-time Community History Officers who record life stories of local people and disseminate the material through exhibitions, talks, publications and community events to make the collections accessible to the public. The material is presented to the local community who have contributed by using innovative activities and venues in order to encourage participation in cultural activities by those groups who are not traditional museum visitors.

The archive contains over 600 life story interviews recorded on 5 inch reel tapes and audio-cassettes, as well as photographs collected from the interviewees' personal collections. The archive contains recordings of dockworkers, seafarers, women war workers, Titanic survivors and local communities.

The collection holds 30 interviews with people of Caribbean origin living in Southampton (collected in the 1980s). Documenting the lives of people who came to Southampton in the 1950s and 1960s, the material has been used to produce an exhibition and a booklet, entitled 'Caribbean Connection'.

The archive houses 30 sound recordings containing interviews (and life story reminiscences) with Asian women of all ages and communities (1999 - present). The latter were conducted in English, Hindi/Urdu and Gujarati. There are also recordings of 'Asian Voices - a woman's view', a series of radio programmes produced jointly with BBC South and broadcast on BBC Radio Solent in 2001.

Strengths: Asian women's life stories contain some detailed descriptions of life in East Africa and South Asia, as well as information on religions and cultural traditions.

Size: c.30 sound recordings and 50 photographs relating to the history of the Caribbean diaspora; 35 sound recordings relating to the South Asian diaspora.

Catalogue: Printed.

Catalogue URL:

Main URL: http://www.southampton.gov.uk/leisure/oralhistory/index.html

Access: The Archive is open for research by appointment only during the stated opening hours (Tel. 023 8063 5904). Only on-site reference access is provided. Researchers wishing to reproduce any material need to apply in writing, stating the purpose and form of reproduction. A reproduction fee may be charged.

Acquisition dates: 1983 - present

Note: Southampton City Council's Oral History Archive covers the period from 1890 to the present and provides a unique insight into the social history of modern Southampton. It has an international reputation in the oral history community and is visited by researchers from around the world. Its community based projects and in-house publication programme ensures the material is widely disseminated.

Interest: Black, Asian

Complete: Complete

Subjects

Photographs

Oral history

Womens studies

Religions

Racial discrimination

Interethnic relations

Immigration

Communities

Personal/Corporate names

Places

Southampton, United Kingdom

Jamaica

Caribbean