Collect Oral Histories for RT?

I am familiar with a couple of oral history projects that are underway – one with retired faculty at I.U. and one with pioneers in vocational rehab. Knowing about these oral history projects made me wonder why we in RT haven’t collected oral histories from some of the pioneers in our profession.

As a part of the Recreation Therapy Video (RTV) federal video project, we were able to interview several pioneers, including Al Grubb, Lloyd Roberts, Dave Park, and Gary Robb. Their remarks appear in two of the history RTV videos. It would be good however to have further reflections from these men, along with others.

Perhaps I can complete interviews with some of the leaders from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. One person I would enjoy interviewing is Jerry Kelley, who was a prominent national figure in our profession in the 1960s and 1970s. I may take my video recorder the next time I see Jerry.

Perhaps you know some of the early leaders in our profession. If you do, I hope you’ll think about interviewing them.

I am more than open to developing a set of interview questions to use in oral history interviews with RT/TR pioneers if anyone else is interested. I'll see what I can locate in terms of the interview questions I.U. is using and if I can find them, I'll pass them along on the RT Blog.