2021 Theses Master's

Real World History: Intergenerational Learning & Student Oral Histories

Peterson, Max

This thesis is a three-part investigation into the Real World History program (a year-long, after-school, applied history course open to public high school students in Washington, DC) created by Cosby Hunt in 2014. In Part I, the author charts the development of the Great Migration Oral History Project from the program’s pilot year to the creation of the Real World History Oral History collection at the DC Public Library in 2020. In Part II, using the student interviews as a case study, the author argues for the importance of archiving student oral history projects and making them publicly accessible. In Part III, the final part of this thesis, the author concludes with a discussion of how the oral history project was redesigned with a renewed focus on community engagement and to fulfill the archival requirements of the DC Public Library.