2024 Oral History Association Annual Meeting

Panelists Pauletta Hansel (Urban Appalachian Story Gathering Project), Amanda Jo Slone (The Appalachian Way) and Matthew Smith (Peck’s Addition: An Oral History of Hamilton, Ohio’s Forgotten Appalachian Neighborhood) share three projects in urban and rural Appalachian communities that connect the past and the present through interviews and oral histories. These projects serve as tools for community identity, advocacy and leadership development among direct participants and beyond.Urban Appalachian Story Gathering Project - Pauletta Hansel
The Urban Appalachian Story Gathering Project began in 2021 as a means of capturing the experiences of greater Cincinnati’s urban Appalachian people while connecting participants to each other and to the organization. 

The Appalachian Way - Amanda Jo Slone
The Appalachian Way is focused on examining leadership through the lens of Appalachian identity. At the heart of the project are interviews with various leaders from the region to uncover their unique leadership journeys and the ways in which Appalachian culture has shaped their leadership style

Peck's Addition: An Oal History of Hamilton, Ohio's Forgotten Appalachian Neighborhood - Matthew Smith
Peck’s Addition: An Oral History of Hamilton, Ohio’s Forgotten Appalachian Neighborhood explores the oral history of Hamilton, Ohio’s Peck’s Addition neighborhood, a redlined Appalachian port-of-entry community that became home to Miami University’s branch campus in 1968ABSTRACT: Greater Cincinnati is home to tens of thousands of individuals whose families migrated from Appalachia for economic and related reasons from the twentieth century to the present. The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition (UACC) serves as an organizing force for this community, while keeping close ties to Appalachian regional organizations. This panel brings together three projects, two from greater Cincinnati and one from southeastern Kentucky, that use interviews and oral history collection as key components. UACC’s Urban Appalachian Story Gathering Project began in 2021 as a means of capturing the experiences of greater Cincinnati’s urban Appalachian people while connecting participants to each other and to the organization. It empowers individuals to collect short interviews with family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues to be made available on UACC’s website. The Appalachian Way is focused on examining leadership through the lens of Appalachian identity. At the heart of the project are interviews with various leaders from the region to uncover their unique leadership journeys and the ways in which Appalachian culture has shaped their leadership style. Peck’s Addition: An Oral History of Hamilton, Ohio’s Forgotten Appalachian Neighborhood explores the oral history of Hamilton, Ohio’s Peck’s Addition neighborhood, a redlined Appalachian port-of-entry community that became home to Miami University’s branch campus in 1968. Through ongoing research at Miami Hamilton, this project seeks to re-stitch the fabric of community memory, highlighting the voices of former residents.Each project combines oral history collection with specific goals for advocacy, leadership and community development. Collectively, we provide examples of community and academic partnerships that may be models for oral historians in other locales. The presentation will explore both the challenges inherent in community-based projects, and strategies used for overcoming these. Panelists will discuss future plans for these ongoing projects and their benefit to their communities.