Our Crowdfunding Groups
Issues of culture, race, and class affect our lives daily. We will be examining fundamentally human issues that are at the heart of communities all over this country and specifically Oklahoma. Deep Roots: The Oklahoma Author Oral History Project will produce a series of interviews documenting the first-person perspectives of minority and women authors in Oklahoma and will create a companion website providing context for classroom use by educators. These oral histories will contextualize an existing archival body of work, which already has a local, state, national, and often international relevance. The resulting materials will be valuable not just to humanities scholars interested in Oklahoma studies, but also to those researchers examining issues of the rural-urban divide, Native American life, and poverty and industry, to name a few.
By engaging in intentional research, oral history documentation, archiving, and curation of this specific series of Oklahoma author-targeted interviews, we can provide access to information about the drive and perspectives of a distinct community of literary artists of the 20th and 21st century. We have already completed a small series of interviews related to targeted Oklahoma authors, such as Angie Debo, whose work dealt largely with Native American history, and the “Okie Poet,” Wilma Elizabeth McDaniels, whose writings reflected on the Dust Bowl era.
As we approach our $15,000 funding goal, every dollar you give is MATCHED by our friends at the Kerr Foundation! We hope to to generate 30 oral history interviews with Oklahoma authors, create a companion website detailing the process and outcome of the project, and curate access to this oral history series giving a voice to those who had previously gone unheard and create content accessible to OSU students and educators alike.
Gifts to this project through the OSU Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, are tax deductible as allowed by law. If you have questions about your gift, please contact the OSU Foundation at 800.622.4678.