{"id":29,"date":"2025-09-17T12:25:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/?p=29"},"modified":"2025-09-17T12:25:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:25:51","slug":"thoughts-on-an-oral-history-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/2025\/09\/17\/thoughts-on-an-oral-history-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on an Oral History Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I selected to review Gladys Peterson\u2019s oral history interview of Evelyn Swant preserved at the University of Montana\u2019s Mansfield Library. Gladys Peterson was an elementary school teacher and public historian, with a resume including many oral histories now preserved by the University of Montana as well as a historic book of the greater Bonner area for the Bonner Milltown History Center & Museum.[1]<\/a> Peterson interviewed Swant on February 11, 1986, about Swant\u2019s work experience as a Montanan librarian in the mid-1900\u2019s working in the Missoula area. The purpose of Peterson\u2019s interviews of Swant \u2013 and two other women – was to gauge \u201cgeneral attitudes about women entering the workforce and how those attitudes evolved throughout the 20th<\/sup> century,\u201d especially in Montana. This selection was personal. I chose this collection because I remember listening to my late grandmother lament about the discrimination she faced in the workforce due to her sex during the 1970\u2019s in Cincinnati, Ohio. She worked public-facing-and-serving jobs at the Cleveland Museum of Art as well as Deloitte and Tusch. Therefore, I naturally gravitated to the oral history interview of the librarian, Swant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swant covers her responsibilities as a Montanan librarian in the Missoula area, her pay, and how her job compared to the positions of her friends as well as associates in other fields. However, Peterson was clear with her purpose \u2013 to uncover examples of workplace discrimination based on sex in the form of terminations based on marriage status. Peterson begins the interview by placing the narrator, Swant, in the time period and jogging her memory. Peterson asks Swant \u201cMaybe we can go back into your memory and talk first of all about the 20\u2019s. You were in college in the late 20\u2019s, is that correct?[2]<\/a> Once Peterson situates Swant in the intended time period, she focuses Swant\u2019s recollection on her friends. \u201cWhat I would ask you is when you were at the University [of Montana], did you find that the girls were intending to work when they got out of college?\u201d[3]<\/a> Swant answers positively about their intent to work, and Peterson asks about Swant\u2019s experience as a librarian after college in 1931 before launching her first attempt at her objective. Regarding Swant\u2019s co-workers, Peterson asks if Swant remembered \u201cthat those who entered the job market stayed in the job market after they married?\u201d[4]<\/a> Swant recalled they didn\u2019t and failed to reinforce Peterson\u2019s subsequent inquiry regarding if this was due to \u201cthe general feeling about women, even college graduates at the time, that they worked until they got married.\u201d[5]<\/a> Deflected, but not defeated, Peterson continues. Peterson switches tactics by expanding the scope of her inquiry, asking if Swant recalls a \u201cfeeling against women [generally] working in Missoula\u201d during the 1930s.[6]<\/a> Again, Swant does not provide any evidence of this, and Peterson further expands the scope of her inquiry. Peterson asks Swant if Swant recalled \u201cWomen looking for jobs who couldn\u2019t find them?\u201d and when that inquiry failed, asked Swant if she noticed \u201cany difference in the trend of women\u2019s employment in Missoula?\u201d[7]<\/a> Picking up on Swant\u2019s rejection about a \u201cdemand for women employees at the time,\u201d Peterson proposes to Swant a possible cause for this lack of demand \u2013 that they would\u2019ve occupied traditionally male jobs. Swant deflates that theory by citing single women traveling to California in search of employment and recalling female workers in the plant at the White Pine Sash and Door Company after World War II, which piqued Peterson\u2019s interest. In her penultimate effort, Peterson jumps to the 1950s and asks Swant about her recollection of a contemporary trend toward increased female employment. Peterson\u2019s question begins with a historical statement. \u201c[F]rom what I\u2019ve been able to figure out, there were women who had been working and they liked it. [\u2026] they wanted to stay in the workforce.  Do you remember that there seemed to be more Missoula women working in the ’50s and from then on? Did the picture seem to be changing?\u201d[8]<\/a> Swant equivocates, tentatively agreeing before qualifying her answer by expressing a lack of full knowledge regarding the situation as a whole. In a last ditch effort, Peterson reduces the scale of her questioning to Swant\u2019s workplace before the library, at the phone company. This strategy yields some success. \u201cI don\u2019t think there was any discrimination there at all,\u201d Peterson states, to which Swant agrees.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peterson is clearly using oral history to \u201cuncover a history of a previously neglected struggle within the ranks of organized labor itself,\u201d in the words of Rick Halpern, to excavate workforce discrimination based on sex in the first half of the 20th<\/sup> century.[10]<\/a> She nurtures a friendly environment with the narrator, and does not probe too much into Swant\u2019s privacy. However, Peterson hinders progress toward her own objective with her line of questioning. It\u2019s evident Swant feels uncomfortable commenting on nebulous trends outside her vocational field and town. For example, when Peterson proposes a theory based on her own experience that the phone company probably wouldn\u2019t have hired married women, Swant agrees.[11]<\/a> Peterson begins the interview well with grounding Swant in the time period and priming Swant\u2019s memory, but fails to effectively change her inquiry strategy. When Peterson enters the narrative, she allows Swant \u2013 in the words of Alessandro Portelli \u2013 \u201cto enter the tale with [her] autonomous discourse.\u201d[12]<\/a> Clearly, Peterson\u2019s strategy of proving workplace discrimination based on sex by evidencing terminations due to marriage status was unfruitful. Peterson should have quickly seen this and diverted to asking about other manifestations of workplace discrimination such as pay differences or even workplace harassment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> \u201cPreserving History Today.\u201d Bonner Milltown History Center and Museum h100. Accessed September 15, 2025. https:\/\/www.bonnermilltownhistory.org\/preserving-history-today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a>Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> Halpern, Rick. \u201cOral History and Labor History: A Historiographic Assessment after Twenty-Five Years.\u201d The Journal of American History 85, no. 2 (1998), 596.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a>Portelli, Alessandro. \u201cWhat Makes Oral History Different.\u201d In The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History, State University of New York Press, 1991, 57.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I selected to review Gladys Peterson\u2019s oral history interview of Evelyn Swant preserved at the University of Montana\u2019s Mansfield Library. Gladys Peterson was an elementary school teacher and public historian, with a resume including many oral histories now preserved by the University of Montana as well as a historic book of the greater Bonner area … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Thoughts on an Oral History Interview”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37394,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37394"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/andmattsthefact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}