BACKGROUND:
In 1986, Mrs. Ann Morris, then history teacher at Carthage High School in Carthage, Texas, began assigning oral history projects to her students. A few years after leaving the high school to teach at Panola College, she began assigning the collecting of oral histories once again.
In 1997, she approached the Panola County Historical and Genealogical Association regarding establishing an oral history archive in the LaGrone Family History Center in Carthage, Texas. PCHGA eagerly embraced the opportunity to house hundreds of transcribed oral histories, and the East Texas Oral History Archive opened in October 1997. The oral histories were processed (edited and otherwise prepared for the Center) in the Archive Workroom located in the Miller Building at Panola College with the assistance of work-study students. Currently, all tapes and transcripts are located at the LaGrone Family History Center.
The Archive presently consists of approximately 400 tape-recorded, transcribed, and indexed oral histories regarding a variety of topics including the Great Depression, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Panola College, church history, and life in general. It is a valuable resource for gathering and preserving local, family, and institutional history. An additional one-hundred or so tapes were conated by Mr. Joe Hough, retired history professor at Panola College.
MISSION:
The mission of the East Texas Oral History Archive is to collect and preserve, through the use of tape-recorded interviews, unique and valuable information about East Texas life and history that exists only in people's memories and that otherwise would be lost.
The Archive accomplishes this through its own interviewing program conducted primarily by students of Mrs. Ann Morris' history classes and welcomes any others who wish to carry out their own oral history projects.
GOALS:
+ To contribute to the resources of the LaGrone Family History Center by continuing to deposit oral histories into the archive as they are collected by students.
+ To publish and disseminate oral history information through workshops, presentations, monthly PCHGA newsletters, press releases, and an Internet home page.
+ To encourage others to interview older family members with the intent to share information with the Archive and the Family History Center. Mrs. Morris conducts oral history workshops for groups interested in learning how to capture their family folklore from family members.
+ To share "how to" information about collecting and preserving oral history with others.
Return to East Texas Oral History Archive Home Page
For additional information about the East Texas Oral History Archive,
contact:
Ann Morris
Panola College
1109 W. Panola St.
Carthage, Texas 75633
Pho. (903) 693-2014
Fax (903) 693-5588
