Berkeley Library Native American Collections at The Bancroft Library
Oral history at The Bancroft Library had its beginnings in the work of its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft. Bancroft recognized that missing from his vast collection of books and manuscripts were the living memories of many of the participants in the development of California and the West. In the 1860s he launched an ambitious project to interview and create biographies of a diverse group of Californians, resulting in hundreds of oral histories, termed dictations.
Title: Native American Collections at the Bancroft Library
Summary: Oral history at The Bancroft Library had its beginnings in the work of its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft. Bancroft recognized that missing from his vast collection of books and manuscripts were the living memories of many of the participants in the development of California and the West. In the 1860s he launched an ambitious project to interview and create biographies of a diverse group of Californians, resulting in hundreds of oral histories, termed dictations.
In 1954, The Bancroft Library established the Regional Oral History Office to conduct interviews with leading citizens of the West. It was renamed as Oral History Center (OHC) in 2014. The OHC has carried out interviews in a variety of major subject areas, which include: politics and government; law and jurisprudence; arts and letters; business and labor; social and community history; University of California history; natural resources and the environment; and science, medicine, and technology.
Indigenous oral histories in this collection include testimonies from Richmond's Santa Fe Village and interviews that formed the basis for the publication Surviving in Two Worlds: Contemporary Native American Voices.
Richmond's Santa Fe Indian Village Summary: The Rosie the Riveter World War II American Homefront Oral Histories comprise an OHC project that interviewed Bay Area residents about their wartime experiences during World War II. A handful of these interviews focus on the Richmond’s Santa Fe Indian Village, established in the early 1920s. As part of a verbal agreement between the Santa Fe Railroad company and the Laguna people of New Mexico, members of the tribe would move to California to work in the Richmond rail yard if the company would refrain from laying tracks too close to their reservation. The railroad company agreed to give these workers and their families a place to live but at first provided only boxcars as housing. Track homes were later erected, but power was ultimately shut off in the village in 1982, forcing the residents to leave.
Surviving in Two Worlds: Contemporary Native American Voices Summary: Interviews that form the basis for the publication, Surviving in Two Worlds: Contemporary Native American Voices, make up a small part of Bancroft's Donated Oral History Collection. These oral histories are of twenty-six Native American leaders who come from a variety of tribal backgrounds, and range from traditional elders and healers to doctors, lawyers, artists, and college presidents. The interviews are grouped around the themes of tradition, history and politics, healing, education, and culture.
Subject(s):
Native American Studies
Tags:
Primary Sources
American Indians
Native Americans
GUIDE CREATOR NOTE: No Traditional Knowledge (TK) Labels are present on the collection information page.
For more information on the repository, the collection, and their oral history holdings, please visit their website here.