Carrboro Oral History Project
This website was constructed in 2015 to promote, preserve, and make public the history of the City of Carrboro. The project is the result of a collaboration between the city and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There are a total of 54 interviews, which are broken up into various subjects. The first is devoted to food and agriculture, with 7 interviews about the Carrboro Farmer’s Market Project.
Food: From Source to Salepoint
This website is part of a larger project conducted by the National Life Stories, a British independent charitable trust and limited company based within the British Library Oral History section. This collection holds over 300 life stories from a range of people over a 10 year period. The interviews cover topics such as rationing, industrialization of farming, advances in technology, and changing consumer tastes.
Foodways Texas
This website is an organization dedicated to preserving, promoting, and celebrating the diverse food cultures of Texas. The organization has several events throughout the year that highlight different foods and cultures within the state, such as Barbecue Camp and the annual symposium. The website hosts a “documentary” section that provides access to films and oral history interviews conducted by members of Foodways Texas. The films are shorter versions of the interviews with images while the audio files are only available on the oral history subpage. The oral history collection has different categories such as Barbecue, Craft Brewery, Iconic Restaurant, and other. Foodways Texas is a partner of the University of Texas Austin and interview transcripts are archived at the Briscoe Center for American History on UT Austin’s campus.
Manitoba Food History Project
This website is part of a larger project conducted by the University of Winnipeg in which they are working to produce a comprehensive history of food consumption, retail, production, and manufacturing in the province of Manitoba. The Manitoba Food History Project is funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. While the website is home to events, blog posts, and an image archive, the “Pantry” holds the three fully conducted and produced oral histories.
Minnesota Farm Advocate Oral History Project
This project is one of the agricultural oral histories hosted by the Minnesota Historical Society and contains 29 interviews of men and women. The interviews occurred in 1988 through 1989 and do not seem to have any possibility of an update. The interviews explained the need for farm advocates during a time when banks and loaners took advantage of farmers. The historical society also has other collections on various topics.
National Sustainable Agriculture Oral History Archive
This website, hosted by the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, traces the evolution of governmental programs and public policies developed to promote sustainable and organic agriculture throughout the United States. The subject matters covered by the 40 video and/or audio recorded interviews include federal Farm Bills and other relevant legislation, grassroots advocacy efforts promoting sustainable agriculture and conservation, the formation of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and its associated regional Sustainable Agriculture Working Groups throughout the United States, and future plans to continue the advancement of sustainable agriculture and a healthier food system. Interviewees include elected officials, academicians, researchers, activists, farmers, and representatives of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
New York Public Library Community Oral History Project
This website is a NYPL project that began in 2013 in the Greenwich Village neighborhood that seeks to document, celebrate, and make accessible the rich history in various New York neighborhoods, including a special section on providing oral histories of disability. More than three hundred volunteers have collected over one thousand oral histories to date. The website has links for several of the New York boroughs, and a search function to find interviews about certain topics such as food or family life within the neighborhoods. Searching food will bring up several oral histories of food experiences in the neighborhoods of New York.
Southern Foodways Alliance Oral Histories
This website includes interviews from a number of Southern regions and hits upon various aspects of the food system from farm/waterways to fork. You can search it by state and word, and while there are only short clips for each interview, a transcript is included. Amongst these collections is one that includes 16 interviews of recent immigrants involved in the food industry along Charlotte’s Central Avenue Corridor.
Traditional Foodways of Native America
These oral histories are a project of The Cultural Conservancy, a Native-led nonprofit founded in 1985 and operating in San Francisco, California. TCC is working to revive and share Native knowledge of environmental stewardship, including conservation and foodways. One of their Native Foodways programs is a collection of over 30 oral history interviews, 11 of which are online, with Natives across the country about their traditional foods and practices.
The Wisconsin Farms Oral History Project
A small collection of what appears to be a larger archival collection, the Wisconsin Farms Oral History Project states that its goal is to connect culture and farming for the general public and see how the two interacted. The site itself is basic but functional and provided interviews are broken up into small parts with written summaries on each.
Lata County Oral History Collection
A large collection oral histories from this Idaho county and the surrounding area that were conducted mostly in the 1970’s primarily by one man: Sam Schrager. A local historian and ethnographer. The website’s stated goal is to record the colorful history of the area including themes such as wild animals, mob actions, economic upheaval, murders and of course, for the scope of our project: food and farming. The archive was created, organized and digitized with help of the University of Idaho Library. The site, while not the most pleasing visually, is extremely well put together and organized, complete with search engines and an interactive map that provides a good example for our own project. The majority of the interviews are transcribed and have a searchable index.