AHS-Rio Colorado oral history collection, 1940-2011

Resource Information

The work AHS-Rio Colorado oral history collection, 1940-2011 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Yuma County Library District. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, http://bibfra.me/vocab/marc/Collection, Multimedia, Mixed Materials.

Label

AHS-Rio Colorado oral history collection, 1940-2011

Inclusive dates

1940-2011

Subject

• La Paz County (Ariz.) -- Anecdotes
• Oral histories
• Reminiscences
• Yuma (Ariz.) -- Anecdotes
• Yuma County (Ariz.) -- Anecdotes

Genre

• Oral histories
• Reminiscences

Language

eng

Summary

These stories document 19th and 20th century military, commercial, cultural and irrigation-agricultural history of the Lower Colorado River; Western migration, early pioneers and family histories; Yuma politics and personalities; natural disasters; the impact of WWII along Arizona's western border; and the long standing geographic and economic ties with California and Mexico. Most folders include originals as well as copies of tapes and transcriptions except where noted. A small number of cassette tapes were sampled for sound quality and condition and were found to be playable and audible

Note

Related material: AHS-Rio Colorado Subject Photograph Collection and AHS-Rio Colorado Biography Collection

Biographical or historical data

The nearly 400 oral histories aggregated in this collection come from multiple sources spanning over 50 years. These include early radio interviews as well public lectures on historical topics, early pioneers and WWII veterans who were stationed in Yuma as well as conversions from reel to reel tapes to audio cassette. A number of the individuals conducting the interviews were themselves among Yuma's first families and pioneers such as Mary Loron?a, Rosemarie Sanguinetti Gwynn, and Pat Callahan. The Century House Museum Oral History Project has been in operation since 1964. By 1983, as many as 80 taped interviews were recorded but few had been transcribed. Workshops were held to train volunteers to conduct interviews and transcribe tapes. This was and is a labor-intensive process ranging from 60 to 80 or more hours to complete a 60-minute tape. The excellent quality of the transcriptions is due to this attention to detail. Most transcripts include helpful summaries on the first page in the Scope and Content notes. In 1986, oral histories received a boost when Gov. Bruce Babbitt created a directory of Arizona residents who were 85 years old or older. That same year, the AHS-Rio Colorado Division, Yuma City/County Library and the Council on Aging obtained a grant from the Arizona Humanities Council to produce oral histories of Yuma County residents age 85 or older who had lived in Yuma County for ten or more years. The result is a colorful and rich documentation of experiences, observations, and commentary from all walks of life. These testimonies, many with titles, provide valuable insights into the diverse social fabric of the Yuma we know today. Additional biographical information may also be found in the AHS-Rio Colorado Biography Collection. Note that there is a separate Yuma Proving Ground Oral History Project.

Cataloging source

ZP3