There is a fascinating and slightly unusual archive here in the UK called the Mass Observation Study, which was started in 1937.Then last week I received an on-line article, published in the Financial Times titled History in the Speaking which looks at the tape recordings and therefore archive from the rich, famous and regular person in the street.
The recordings make up an incredible oral archive housed at the British Library. The archive has focused on various projects and is very varied from the Living Memory of the Jewish Community which was collated between 1988 and 1993 to An Oral History of Tesco, the Supermarket chain based here in the UK, which ran between 2003 - 2007. Some of the Oral archives are available to be listened too and others closed until the author's death.
A food project ran between 2000-2001 and now hosts more than 200 references and some of the oral archive can be listened to on-line. (I hope those outside of the UK can access the wonderful & thought provoking resource).
How interesting. All that food history in one place. I clicked on some of the links, and it works just fine outside the UK.
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of fascinating
ReplyDeletewow, an interesting article there in the Times. I have to look at this further.
ReplyDeleteI could spend hours on some of those links! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading and listening to oral histories of ordinary events. This sounds very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for writing about this -- I've bookmarked the links -- there's some good reading there.
ReplyDeleteI used to shop at Tesco when I was at school in England. Thanks for the links -- I will go investigate.
ReplyDeleteRose City Reader