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Introduction
Introduction
On May 24th, 1974, the quiet community of Eddyville, Kentucky bustled with activity. It was a Friday night, the beginning of the weekend, but carload after carload of people made their way to the Lyon County High School for the first event of a two-day celebration of Forrest C. Pogue Day. The day had been initiated to celebrate and recognize the extraordinary accomplishments of a local man who had risen to prominence as a historian, achieving the distinction of writing the official biography of George C. Marshall, the fiftieth United States Secretary of State. That year, he would begin work as Director of the Eisenhower Institute for Historical Research.
As the school auditorium slowly filled with people, the excitement in the room was tangible. The event began with a student-led invocation, and then Constantine W. Curris took the stage. He was the president of Murray State University, Dr. Pogue’s alma mater. He addressed the students at the event directly, and immediately made clear his immense pride in Dr. Pogue’s accomplishments:
“[I am so honored] to participate in honoring Dr. Forrest Pogue, who is such a real part of this county and of your heritage, and he's also a very real part of our university. And you've met several people from Murray State who are here today. There are hundreds of others who would like to be here, because we are so fond of this man, and what he has meant to us and to the nation.”
“[I am so honored] to participate in honoring Dr. Forrest Pogue, who is such a real part of this county and of your heritage, and he's also a very real part of our university. And you've met several people from Murray State who are here today. There are hundreds of others who would like to be here, because we are so fond of this man, and what he has meant to us and to the nation.”
He continued:
“For today, we are honoring a historian. We are making history today. We are recording history, and you are a part of that history. And history is a recollection by human beings of accomplishments by human beings. As we participate in Kentucky's Bicentennial, citizens all across the Commonwealth are examining factors and events that have shaped their lives. And this is significant, for only by understanding what has occurred and the forces that cause these events can we know the fiber of our national character. In this examination, we must keep in mind the human element. We can recognize that the very human emotions that were experienced by those who have taken leadership roles in the past are similar to those that we will face in the future. And the fears and frustrations that we all share are nothing new. They were significant forces affecting people who came before us.”[1]
“For today, we are honoring a historian. We are making history today. We are recording history, and you are a part of that history. And history is a recollection by human beings of accomplishments by human beings. As we participate in Kentucky's Bicentennial, citizens all across the Commonwealth are examining factors and events that have shaped their lives. And this is significant, for only by understanding what has occurred and the forces that cause these events can we know the fiber of our national character. In this examination, we must keep in mind the human element. We can recognize that the very human emotions that were experienced by those who have taken leadership roles in the past are similar to those that we will face in the future. And the fears and frustrations that we all share are nothing new. They were significant forces affecting people who came before us.”[1]
After this introduction, Forrest C. Pogue took the stage. A middle-aged man of medium build, Dr. Pogue’s age no doubt showed as he stood next to Constantine Curris, the youngest ever president of Murray State University at only thirty-four. Dr. Pogue had lived through two world wars, having served on the front lines lines of the second. His balding head and thick glasses betrayed his age and experiences. But for this visit to his boyhood home, his youthful excitement was palpable. He thanked Dr. Curris, and the organizers of the event, and related himself to the students of Lyon County High:
“I was educated within a few miles of this place in Crittenden County schools. I know what it's like to come from what is called a ‘small school.’ I also know that with some of the disadvantages, […] there also goes some tremendous advantages, which I feel helped me to get to Murray. And although I've been to other schools here and in Europe, I know how much Murray in particular meant to me. I've never really left this part of the country. My thoughts are always here, and I return as often as I can to here and to Murray.”[2]
“I was educated within a few miles of this place in Crittenden County schools. I know what it's like to come from what is called a ‘small school.’ I also know that with some of the disadvantages, […] there also goes some tremendous advantages, which I feel helped me to get to Murray. And although I've been to other schools here and in Europe, I know how much Murray in particular meant to me. I've never really left this part of the country. My thoughts are always here, and I return as often as I can to here and to Murray.”[2]
Dr. Forrest Pogue
Dr. Forrest Pogue
Dr. Forrest C. Pogue was born in Eddyville, Kentucky and grew up in neighboring Crittenden County. He received his undergraduate degree at what was then the Murray State College in Murray, Kentucky, and went on to receive a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky, and a doctorate degree from Clark University. He eventually returned to Murray State, where he taught history until he was drafted in 1942. After serving in the army for a short time, he was singled out for his background in history and re-assigned to a special historical unit tasked with writing a history of the Second United States Army. During his time as a combat historian, he interviewed countless soldiers about their experiences fighting the war. It was this experience, along with his involvement in the early development of various oral history programs, which earned him the title of “pioneer of oral history.”
From Eddyville, to Murray State University, to the front lines of World War II as a combat historian, to his illustrious career as a historian, Dr. Forrest Carlisle Pogue seemed to make a mark wherever he went. There are still monuments bearing his name littered across western Kentucky: an engraved stone with his picture and a short biography welcomes visitors to the public library in the county where he grew up, Murray State University’s own special collections library is named after him, and a number of informational placards identifying locations of historical significance throughout the Jackson Purchase region also bear his name. But perhaps his most significant legacy is his contribution to the field of oral history.
The development of oral history as a way of conducting and thinking about historical research had a profound impact on historical methodology, and Dr. Pogue was instrumental in that change.
The development of oral history as a way of conducting and thinking about historical research had a profound impact on historical methodology, and Dr. Pogue was instrumental in that change.
Oral History
Oral History
The Oral History Association defines oral history as “a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events.”[3] Additionally, oral historian Donald Ritchie offers an excellent explanation of the discipline in his 1994 field guide, Doing Oral History:
“Oral History collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. An oral history interview generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange in audio or video format. Recordings of the interview are transcribed, summarized, or indexed and then placed in a library or archives. These interviews may be used for research or excerpted in a publication, radio or video documentary, museum exhibition, dramatization or other form of public presentation.”[4]
“Oral History collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. An oral history interview generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange in audio or video format. Recordings of the interview are transcribed, summarized, or indexed and then placed in a library or archives. These interviews may be used for research or excerpted in a publication, radio or video documentary, museum exhibition, dramatization or other form of public presentation.”[4]
In essence, oral history is exactly what it sounds like. Rather than employ more physical methods of historical research, such as printed sources, physical or natural evidence, or archival documents, oral historians formally record and assess oral traditions and testimonies. Above, Ritchie specifies that “an oral history interview generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange in audio or video format.”[5] This distinction (well-prepared) was considered to be critical by Dr. Pogue. In an oral history interview housed in the Pogue Library archives at Murray State University, in which he crossed to the other side of the tape recorder and sat as an interviewee, Dr. Pogue stressed the importance of preparation to a student from the University’s oral history department. He said:
“A well conducted oral history should be as good as memoirs. If the man is not doing any research, to write his own memoirs, he's just telling it out of his head. If you have a proper interviewer, you should have a better interview […] than if you depend on him to write it, because often you can draw out of him things he’ll forget to put out. He doesn't consider it important until you ask him, and you can keep him from putting things down that are wrong, that it'll take twenty to thirty years to get off the record.”[6]
“A well conducted oral history should be as good as memoirs. If the man is not doing any research, to write his own memoirs, he's just telling it out of his head. If you have a proper interviewer, you should have a better interview […] than if you depend on him to write it, because often you can draw out of him things he’ll forget to put out. He doesn't consider it important until you ask him, and you can keep him from putting things down that are wrong, that it'll take twenty to thirty years to get off the record.”[6]
These standards of veracity and accuracy, held by Pogue and other pioneers in the field of oral history, are part of what propelled it to prominence and popular acceptance during the middle of the twentieth century.[7] Before, it had been eschewed by the Rankean historians of the nineteenth century, who preferred what they considered to be the unimpeachable facts provided by more tangible forms of historical evidence. The dedication of oral historians during the twentieth century to precision and consistent methodology helped restore the age-old practice of oral interviewing to the toolbelt of the academic historian.
This was no small addition. Oral history provides historians with a means of acquiring close, personal details that are hard to infer from documents and data. Even written personal accounts, such as journal entries, or courtroom testimonies which have been transcribed, can’t match the detail in a recording with a person’s tone of voice, pauses, inflections and cadences. Even just the transcription of an oral history interview can be more valuable to historians than other written first-hand accounts, when, as Dr. Pogue specified, the interviewer is well-researched and intentional about the way they conduct their interview.
Impact
Impact
Oral history has also been significant for historical narratives that had been previously neglected by historians in the U.S., such as those of women and minorities. Oral history gave feminist historians the means to integrate women into historical scholarship, highlight gender as a category of analysis, and allow women being interviewed to take an active part in constructing their narratives by talking about the things which held importance for them.[8] Likewise, scholars of African American history have noted the significance of oral history to the civil rights movement: “Oral history documents mass mobilization at an individual level. Narratives frequently reveal the changes of heart and mind that movement participation produces. Narrators describe the changing consciousness that accompanies movement activity as they recount their own journeys from alienation to resistance, from a passive anger or fatalism to political action.”
In his book, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, author Paul Richard Thompson comments on the paradigm shift that oral history affords to understudied topics: “In all these fields of history [children’s history, family history, and women’s history], by introducing new evidence from the underside, by shifting the focus and opening new areas of inquiry, by challenging some of the assumptions and accepted judgements of historians, by bringing recognition to substantial groups of people who had been ignored, a cumulative process of transformation is set in motion.”[9] When people are themselves consulted about the construction of their narratives, depth and detail are added to historical records.
Dr. Forrest Pogue, though a pioneer in the field, was aware of the fallibility of oral history interviews. In the archived interview he did with a Murray State student, he cautioned:
“It is valuable to get the composite experience of a number of farmers, a number of builders, but if you just go get one, what you’re getting is color. Newspaper people do this all the time. They like color, and they will just [talk to] three people, colorful in their language. That’s not history.”[10]
“It is valuable to get the composite experience of a number of farmers, a number of builders, but if you just go get one, what you’re getting is color. Newspaper people do this all the time. They like color, and they will just [talk to] three people, colorful in their language. That’s not history.”[10]
He emphasized the importance of careful research, deliberate interview questions, and dedication to accuracy. Oral history has its strengths and weaknesses, but when done properly, its value to historians is clear. Dr. Pogue recognized this, and as a result his legacy will only continue to be felt throughout Western Kentucky and the world.
Notes
Notes
[1] Constantine Curris, Recorded by the Forrest C. Pogue Oral History Institute at Murray State University by Dr. James W. Hammack, Jr. , May 24-25, 1974, Pogue Library, Murray, Kentucky.
[2] Forrest C. Pogue, Recorded by the Forrest C. Pogue Oral History Institute at Murray State University by Dr. James W. Hammack, Jr. , May 24-25, 1974, Pogue Library, Murray, Kentucky.
[3] “Oral History: Defined.” Oral History Association. Accessed April 25, 2020. https://www.oralhistory.org/about/do-oral-history/.
[4] Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
[5] Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
[6] Forrest C. Pogue, interview by David Elliot, November 10, 1981, Pogue Library, Murray, Kentucky.
[7] Charlton, Thomas L., et al. Thinking about Oral History: Theories and Applications. AltaMira Press, 2006: 8
[8] Joan Sangster (1994) Telling our stories: feminist debates and the use of oral history, Women's History Review, 3:1, 5-28, DOI: 10.1080/09612029400200046
[9] Thompson, Paul Richard, and Joanna Bornat. The Voice of the Past: Oral History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017
[10] Forrest C. Pogue, interview by David Elliot, November 10, 1981, Pogue Library, Murray, Kentucky.
About the Author
About the Author
Emily Combs is a history major at Murray State University, with a minor in Creative Writing. She has lived in or near the Jackson Purchase region for most of her life, and enjoys learning about local history. She hopes to one day share this interest with others through a career in museums.
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