The Columbia Center for Oral History's Popular Arts Project
Posted: November 14th, 2012, 1:40 pm
Is anyone here familiar with the The Columbia Center for Oral History? I happened across their website a while back, and discovered a collection of in-depth interviews of various people involved in some way or another with popular arts, including a great deal of actors, directors, and other people involved in filmmaking, such as Frank Capra, Jackie Cooper, Buster Keaton, and dozens more. The interviews were from the Popular Arts Project, an oral history project which lasted from 1958 to 1960. I had never heard of these interviews before; I suppose they could be considered obscure.
I recently purchased a transcript of one of their interviews (they are quite affordable, just 10 cents a page plus shipping, which came out to $7.60 for the 61-page interview I bought), and was very impressed. It not only contained a lot of information about the interviewee, but also a great deal of first-hand knowledge about classic Hollywood, and some interesting thoughts and observations. Since the information is first-hand, it provides a certain type of insight that a historian couldn't provide.
Here's the page for the project:
http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.e ... pd_4072546
I recently purchased a transcript of one of their interviews (they are quite affordable, just 10 cents a page plus shipping, which came out to $7.60 for the 61-page interview I bought), and was very impressed. It not only contained a lot of information about the interviewee, but also a great deal of first-hand knowledge about classic Hollywood, and some interesting thoughts and observations. Since the information is first-hand, it provides a certain type of insight that a historian couldn't provide.
Here's the page for the project:
http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.e ... pd_4072546