Oral history
Aletta wants to collect and preserve women’s oral history in digital form. To this end, Aletta is developing a fully searchable online digital video archive on the feminist movements of the second half of the 20th century.
Firsthand accounts
People who personally experienced important historical events can give firsthand accounts of the events as they happened. These oral histories provide a broader context for the documents in the paper archives and help create a more complete picture. The first of these interviews are already available online. Users can search the content of the videos using the latest speech recognition technology.Search the video archive
Oral history methodology
The interviewers in this series use a technique known as the “life story approach”. In this approach, questions are not limited to a specific period in the interviewee’s life, but span her/his entire life. You can find more information about this interview technique in the article “Dance Around the Camera” from the book Traveling Heritages.Article “Dance around the camera”
The Women’s Health Movement
Since 2008, Aletta has been building a video archive about the feminist movements of the second half of the 20th century. This work is happening in stages. For the first series of interviews, Aletta is working in partnership with a research project at the Utrecht University entitled Geschiedenis van de Vrouwenhulpverlening (A History of the Dutch Women’s Health Movement). Aletta has recorded ten interviews with women (and one man) who played key roles in the Dutch Women’s Health Movement in the 1970s and 80s. A documentary has been made using the raw interview material and historical film footage.Documentary: Women’s Healthcare, discovery and innovation
Dolle Mina and beyond
At the moment, Aletta is putting together a series of interviews about Dolle Mina, a Dutch feminist activist group that was founded in 1969. Eventually, our goal is to document the entire breadth of the feminist movements of the second half of the 20th century using video interviews. We are hoping to create a video archive of more than a hundred interviews, which will be an inspiration for current and future generations and will provide a unique source of information for academic research.Support the Oral History project?
The preservation of the oral history of the feminist movements of the second half of the 20th century depends on your donations. Most of the financing for the oral history project comes from the Aletta Jacobs Fund, a fund supported by contributions from friends of Aletta. You can make a donation to the Aletta Jacobs Fund and specify the project you would like to support, or you can sponsor an entire video interview.For more information
Would you like to know more?
Grietje Keller, the project manager for the Video History project, is maintaining a weblog where you can stay up to date on the progress of the project.Go to the blog
Participate?
Aletta values your ideas and opinions. Let us know what you think about the Video History project on the project’s wiki.Go to the wiki