Oral histories have long been used to capture information on particular aspects of the work of the U.S. Forest Service and have been conducted by several organizations, most often in cooperation with the Forest Service. In the past several years a group of interested parties has worked to establish a means for coordinating efforts among themselves and others to ensure that strategic topics are documented and important participants in agency history are intereviewed. This Guide is a first attempt to gather information about existing oral history interviews and will be expanded when possible. If you know of additional projects that should be included, please contatct FHS Librarian, Cheryl Oakes.
Below are some of the organizations that have completed projects that interviewed Forest Service employees, neighbors, or cooperators.
Regional Oral History Office, University of California, Berkeley
Regional Oral History Office, Berkeley completed a number of interviews (some in conjunction with the Forest History Society) dating from 1962 - 1987 and relating to forestry topics, including the Forest Service.
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/subjectarea/natres/forestry.html
ROHO also has 150 interviews conducted from 2004 - 2009 by the Forest Service California Region 5 retirees' oral history committee. They cover such topics as Forest Careers, Community, Timber Management, Changing Workforce, Fire Control, and Public Relations. 80 transcripts are available online.
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/usfs/transcripts.html
Denver Public Library
DPL holds 53 interviews done in the 1960s in the Rocky Mountain Region (Region 2).
http://catalog.denverlibrary.org/cgi-bin/cw_cgi?fullRecord+3764+10+623557282+4+1
Forest History Society
has conducted about 95 oral history interviews between 1955 and 2010, primarily focused on the National Forest System, Forest Service research and the forest survey. Several are available online as PDFs.
http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/ohisrch.html
FHS also holds the original Mini-DV recordings of 430 interviews conducted as part of the selection process leading up to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2005 that celebrated the centennial of the Forest Service. About 50 of the interviews has been transcribed and made available on the website.
http://www.foresthistory.org/Events/folklife2005.html
Fort Lewis College
The Center of Southwest Studies has multiple collections that contain interviews related to the U.S. Forest Service.
The USFS Centennial Oral History Project contains 36 interviews conducted in 1991, the year when the anniversary of the first national forest was celebrated. Interviews vary in length from 30 to 120 minutes and have been transcribed.
http://swcenter.fortlewis.edu/inventory/USFSOH.htm
Idaho State Historical Society
"Smokejumping and Forest Fire Fighting Oral History Project" has interviews with 30 men and women who helped suppress or manage blazes in forests throughout the U.S. West. Interviews range in length from one hour to 8 ½ hours. Tape summaries and audio clips are available online and transcripts can be ordered.
http://history.idaho.gov/smokejumper.html
Lewis and Clark College
The college, located in Portland, Oregon, has a collection of audio recordings and transcriptions of oral history interviews with 82 World War II conscientious objectors from Camp 56 near Waldport, Oregon. The camp was near the Siuslaw National Forest, in which the men felled snags, built roads, and planted trees for the U.S. Forest Service from October 1942 to April 1946. Interviews were conducted in 2003 and range in length from ½ hour to 4 hours.
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv16964
Oregon Historical Society
has the Columbia River History Oral History Collection. It contains many interviews conducted from 1998 to 2000 that comment on the impact of the work of the Forest Service on the Columbia River region. They range in length from 1 to 4 hours and have all been transcribed.
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv99870
University of Alaska
The Rasmuson Library contains a collection of 8 interviews conducted between 1963-1978 to document the Forest Service in Alaska. Cassette tapes available in the Library.
University of Montana, Missoula
"Intaglio, Inc. The National Forests of the Northern Region: A Living History , Research Collection" contains at least 6 oral history transcripts of interviews with former Forest Service employees in the Northern Region (Region 1) that were conducted between 1968 and 1990.
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv58498
13 interviews were conducted in 1977 by Jane Reed as part of a project to document the Ninemile Remount Depot. Cassette tapes and indexes are available in the Mansfield Library.
Also at the University Montana, Missoula, the National Smokejumper Association Records contain 6 oral history interviews with smokejumpers in 1984 and 1985.
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv89621
And within the Wilderness Policy History Project Collection are 10 brief telephone interviews done in 2000 and 2001 by Dennis Roth with employees involved in wilderness management.
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv21563
University of Wisconsin-Madison
The U.S. Forest Products Lab Centennial Oral History Project produced digital audio interviews with 52 current and former employees of the Lab which is located in Madison, Wisconsin. The interviews were conducted in 2008 and all have been fully transcribed and keyword indexed. The transcripts and indexes are on paper and also have been preserved in electronic form.
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/FPLHist/