Free and Open to the Public

Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC)

May 4, 2001
Plenary, 9 am - 10 am scheduled to be held in rooms Liberty B & C located on the second floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel
1800 Market Street, Philadelphia PA

Getting Word Oral History Project

Presenters: Lucia Stanton and Dianne Swanne-Wright
"Coming Before Winter: Preserving African-American Oral History."

The Getting Word Oral History Project at Monticello locates and records the oral histories of the descendants of Monticello's enslaved African-American community. Since 1993, project staff have traveled over 20,000 miles, interviewing descendants all over the United States. More than 130 people have contributed to the project by sharing their family histories and photographs.

In their presentation entitled "Coming Before Winter: Preserving African-American Oral History" the speakers will address the scope of the project, but more importantly focus on the need to preserve and the necessity to education the public about collecting information that documents the history of African Americans through oral histories. As they travel to gather information and share what they have learned, they have found that their project intertwines with art, music, folklore, history and archaeology.

Lucia Stanton is the Project Director and the Shannon Senior Research Historian at Monticello and has been doing research on Monticello for over twenty years, with a particular interest in the plantation at large and the lives of its African-American residents. Dianne Swann-Wright is the Project Historian and the Director of Special Programming at Monticello and is an African-American historian with experience in local and regional history. Ms. Stanton and Swann-Wright's presentation will be substantive and informative to not only archivists, but students, teachers, librarians and those interested in the history of Philadelphia, African American history, and history in general.

The Plenary Session has been supported in part by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the State partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For more information contact Margaret Jerrido, MARAC co-chair, Local Arrangements at 215/204-6639 or e-mail: mj@astro.temple.edu