UCSB Oral History Collections

Frank KellyThe UCSB Oral History collections are primarily interviews conducted by Special Collections staff, along with supporting documentation. Also some oral histories done by others and donated to Special Collections. Many of the oral histories augment materials in other areas of Special Collections.

Architecture/Urban Planning

  • Interviews with Joseph T. Bill, John C. Harkness, H. Ralph Taylor, Congressman James H. Scheuer, Yukio Kawaratani, Ray Hebert, Jack Bevash, James Langenheim, Niels Stoermer, Cesar Pelli, Edward Logue, Edward L. Barnes, Harry Cobb, Bruce Allen, and Edward Helfeld.

Arts and Entertainment

  • Includes interviews with Paul Radin (film producer) and Howard Walls (early 20th century Hollywood).

Cultural Diversity

  • Includes the Japanese American /Nisei Oral History Project, Helen and Hiroshi Takeda, Anita Mackey, and Mississippi/Headstart Project.

Humanistic Psychology

  • Includes interviews with leading practitioners such as James F. T. Bugental, Stanley Keleman, Carl Rogers, Virginia Satir, Robert Tannenbaum, and the Avanta network.

Santa Barbara Area History

  • Interviews relating to Harold S. Chase (Hope Ranch; brother of Pearl Chase), Joel Conway (photography and film industry), Direct Relief International, Frances Gledhill (community and political issues), Loyd Amos and Berta Lee Winniford Kelley (early 20th century Santa Barbara), Jeanette Lyons (early 20th century Santa Ynez Valley), Old Town Goleta Oral History Project, UCSB Public History projects (State Street, water, fires, Santa Barbara wine history).

UCSB

  • Interviews relating to faculty and administrators such as Ellen Bowers (Dean of Women), Vernon Cheadle (UCSB Chancellor and botanist), Donald Davidson (University Librarian), Katherine Esau (botanist), Lieslotte Fajardo (library), Thomas Fleming (Black Studies), Friends of the UCSB Libraries (events and programs), Mario Garcia (History/Chicano Studies), Theodore Harder (early Goleta campus years), Garrett Hardin (biology, population, and ecology), Hugh Kenner (English), Herbert Kroemer (Nobel Prize winner, Physics, 2000), Katherine McNabb (library - Riviera and early Goleta campus years), Lawrence Willson (English).

World War II

  • Experiences of Donald C. Davidson, Robert O. Easton (who also published his correspondence with his wife, Jane Easton, in Love and War) Douwe Stuurman, Bob Tannenbaum, and George Wittenstein (White Rose German resistance movement).

Writers, Printers, and Publishers

  • Harry Ashmore (newspaperman, Pulitzer Prize winner, CSDI), Robert O. Easton (western and California fiction), Anton K. Money (1920s Yukon mining frontier), Hobart Skofield (Printers Collection, printing industry, and Rudge Press), Noel Young (Capra Press).

Oral histories supporting UCSB printed or manuscript collections

  • Includes interviews relating to Mercedes Eichholz (re William O. Douglas), Frank Kelly (CSDI; Truman speech writer), Frances Holden/Lotte Lehmann (opera soprano), Jay Monaghan (Lincoln and Wyles Collection), Harvey Wheeler (CSDI).

    • Email: special [at] library [dot] ucsb [dot] edu or call (805) 893-8215 for more information.