This Thanksgiving season, we wanted to highlight digital archives of audiovisual materials and oral histories showcasing Indigenous lives and voices. The holdings of the collections below are accessible online to off-site users—click through the links below to explore this history.
Native American History Project at the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
“Oral history transcripts for the Native American collections, including the Lumbee, Cherokee, Catawba, and more, are available online at the University of Florida Digital Collections.”
Doris Duke American Indian Oral History Project at Oklahoma State University Digital Collections
“The Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History online provides access to typescripts of interviews (1967 -1972) conducted with hundreds of Indians in Oklahoma regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes. Related are accounts of Indian ceremonies, customs, social conditions, philosophies, and standards of living. Members of every tribe resident in Oklahoma were interviewed. The collection includes the original tapes on which the interviews were recorded, as well as microfiche copies of the typescripts. The digital representation of the typescripts are organized by tribe but may be searched by interviewee, by interviewer, by tape number, or by keyword searching of the full-text of the transcript.”
Indian-Pioneer Papers Oral History Collection at Oklahoma State University Digital Collections
“The Indian-Pioneer Papers oral history collection spans from 1861 to 1936. It includes typescripts of interviews conducted during the 1930s by government workers with thousands of Oklahomans regarding the settlement of Oklahoma and Indian territories, as well as the condition and conduct of life there. Consisting of approximately 80,000 entries, the index to this collection may be accessed via personal name, place name, or subject.”
New Mexico Digital Collections
“New Mexico Digital Collections is the central search portal for digital collections about New Mexico. A service of the University of New Mexico Libraries, they provide access to digitized photographs, manuscripts, posters, oral histories, videos, maps, and books from libraries, museums, and cultural centers across the state.”
A substantial amount of these digital collections directly relate to tribes indigenous to the New Mexico area.
Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR) at the American Philosophical Society
“The APS Library & Museum contains over 1,900 linear feet of unique manuscripts, photographs, and audio recordings relating to over 650 different Indigenous cultures of the Americas.”
Digitized audio and video recordings are available to off-site users by request, through making an Aeon account.
