On July 10, Delaware Governor John Carney, members of the news media, and local history enthusiasts attended a special event at Hagley celebrating the launch of a new digital exhibit on the Brandywine Valley Oral History Project. The exhibit serves as a portal to Hagley’s oldest and largest oral history collection, which consists of 352 hours of audio interviews with nearly 200 people who lived and worked in the communities along the Brandywine Creek.
Between 1954 and 1990, Hagley staff conducted these interviews to better understand the day-to-day workings of the powder yards, as well as the working and home lives of the people and families who settled in the area. Staff transcribed the interviews, and prepared a subject index for the collection as a whole. The information they contained formed the foundation for the museum’s interpretation of the property, from the powder mills to Workers’ Hill.
For decades, these typewritten transcripts were the only way to access the collection. But Hagley held on to the original reel-to-reel and cassette tapes, and five years ago embarked on an effort to make the interviews available in both text and audio form.
Hagley staff digitized the paper transcripts and the audio, and made them available online through the digital archive. With support from Delaware Humanities, Hagley has now digitally synchronized the transcripts and the audio, and created a digital exhibit to help visitors navigate this large collection more easily.
The digital exhibit highlights recurring topics in the interviews. These include community traditions and celebrations, memories of childhood and recreation, food and drink, work and home life, and the dangers of explosions in the powder yards. Visitors can navigate the collection by theme, listen to clips from the interviews, and link out to the full audio recordings and transcripts in the digital archive. They can also explore the important places along the Brandywine through an interactive map of the area. Those interested in locating a relative or particular person can browse a complete list of all interviewees by last name.
At the launch event, historian Dr. Margaret Mulrooney recalled poring over the transcripts when she was completing the research for her book, Black Powder, White Lace: The DuPont Irish and Cultural Identity in Nineteenth-Century America. When she first was able to hear the voices of the people whose lives she had come to know so intimately through those typescripts, she was deeply moved. “This collapses the distance of the past,” she said.
Those who attended the launch event were able to test drive the digital exhibit at a group of listening stations set up in the back of the room. “All of that history that you learn about in a book just came to life,” remarked Governor Carney, who praised Hagley’s efforts to make these interviews available to the community.
The exhibit launch has been featured on The Washington Post, WDEL, and Hockessin Community News. A video containing footage from the event is also available.
Amrys O. Williams is the Associate Director of the Hagley Center and Oral Historian at Hagley Museum and Library.