These primary sources will highlight wartime work in cities during WWII, migration and immigration patterns to cities in the WWII era (including the Second Great Migration) and the Harlem Riots of 1943. You will have use this option for choosing your source:
Option One:
The Rosie the Riveter World War II American Home Front oral history project from the Bancroft Library. This oral history project features interviews with wartime defense workers, many of them women. Many of these interviewees describe leaving rural areas to pursue work in cities during the war.
To find your source:
1. Access the collection here: https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/oral-history-center/projects/rori
2. Click on “See all interviews” Browse through the descriptions of oral history interviews to get a sense of what is covered in the video. You can browse through the transcript, or if you click on the video, they usually have an index outlining the topics covered.
3. Look for a source the highlights what it was like to move from a rural area to a city for wartime defense work, and perhaps even a source that highlights what it was like to be part of the Second Great Migration.
4. Interviews recommend:
Mary Newson, Dorothy Eng, Mary Head, and Elizabeth Tate. You can search for these names in the search bar after clicking “see all interviews.”
Your analysis will be 3 – 4 pages. Your analysis must contain the following parts:
1. An introduction with a crystal-clear argument about why this source is important for understanding the historical time period it is covering.
What does this oral history interview add to our understanding of migration patterns to cities during WWII, or what wartime or immediate post-war period was like in cities?
Does it highlight trends we have already discussed? Does it add a new perspective to this history?
2. After your introduction, introduce your source and give a brief summary of it. Explain everything you know about the who, what, where, when, and why: who created the source, when it was created, where it was created, why it was created, and a summary of what the source says.
The oral history transcript will tell you the name of the interviewer, the interviewee, and when the interview was conducted/recorded. You want to make sure to include this in your introduction.
3. Once you have introduced the source, you want to put the interview in historical context.
In this case, you want to use what you know about cities in the decades around WWII to explain how this source highlights some of the trends we have learned about.
You want to make sure to draw historical context from: the lecture on “wartime cities,” the Zoot Suit Riot documentary, the podcast on the Detroit riots, and chapter 4 of Jon Teaford’s The Twentieth Century American City.
You will likely also find it useful to draw from the week 10 lectures on the civil rights movement.
Depending on the interview, you may also find it helpful to include information on the post-War years as well, like the lectures from week 9, or chapter 5 of your textbook.
4. In concluding, give the reader a sense of the potential bias of the source. In other words, is the interview a reliable source from what you know of the time period?
For example, does the other evidence from class support some of the points the interviewee makes?
Is the interviewee’s experience widely applicable to others? Another thing to think about is, how many years have passed between the events and the interview. Does this impact the interviewee’s memory of the events?
Also, how might the interviewer’s questions influence what the interviewee remembers or how they discuss events?
Is there anything the interviewee seems reluctant to talk about or might have glossed over?
Finally, despite potential bias, why is this source important for understanding this historical period?
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