Oral Histories

At the Indigenous Chicago project’s initial community meeting in January 2020, conducting new oral histories was one of the first priorities that community members identified. From 1982-1984, Native community members collaborated with the Newberry Library to record twenty three oral interviews with other members of the Chicago Native community. However, no such oral history project had been completed since then, and community members were committed to growing a community archiving practice in which their voices were represented in archival collections. 

With the support of the Oral History subcommittee, we went through multiple rounds of revisions on consent forms that were most appropriate for community needs, and identified a variety of methods for conducting oral interviews. Many oral histories were conducted at “Oral History Days” co-hosted by the American Indian Health Services of Chicago; others were conducted at powwow booths, in people’s homes, at their workplaces, and at the Newberry. Interviews were conducted by both Newberry staff and by community members. 

We have conducted interviews with more than 50 individuals, but we are still in the process of transcribing, and receiving interviewee approval for those transcriptions. We will continue to add the recordings to this page as they are processed. This project is also ongoing. If you are a member of the Chicago American Indian Community and would like to be interviewed, please contact us. 

Per the wishes of the Oral History subcommittee, we have left the interview transcripts verbatim unless otherwise requested by the interviewee(s).

When you click on each interview audio recording, you will be prompted to create an account on our Digital Collections platform. You will only need to do this step once. Only registered users can access the audio recordings and transcripts.