Since 1954, the Bancroft Library's Regional Oral History Office has undertaken a singular effort to preserve the history of California in the voices of Californians. Researchers at ROHO conduct lengthy recorded interviews with their subjects. Transcriptions of these interviews, and more recently the tapes themselves, are housed in the Bancroft's archives.
Past projects have covered everything from the history of the Free Speech Movement to diversity at the University of California. But one project has generated special buzz as it records history in the making.
Ann Lage
As part of its effort to document the emergence of biotech in California, ROHO is creating an oral history of Proposition 71 and the rise of California as a center for stem cell research. Sally Hughes, a ROHO historian of science, medicine, and technology since the 1970s, has joined with Ann Lage, who specializes in the history of disability rights, to lead the creation of this new Prop. 71 archive.
Hughes says she hopes to get past the rhetoric of pro and con to draw out the more subtle implications of the stem cell movement.
"There are definite social, ethical, economic, and political implications," Hughes says. "For us it is in a sense a new kind of project in that we are trying to cast a wide enough net to capture the whole range of issues."
Sally Hughes
The project will feature interviews not only with scientists, but the activists, politicians, business executives, and patients at the center of California's stem cell debate.
"I think the challenge will be to get people to say more than they would in their public statements," Lage says.
Part of that challenge lies in ROHO's protocol. Interviewees are shown the transcripts of their interviews and given the chance to edit them. The process could theoretically allow interviewees to take back potentially embarrassing statements at the expense of candor. But, Hughes says, it ensures accuracy.
Though funds from Proposition 71 have yet to be disbursed pending an ongoing lawsuit, Hughes and Lage say their project will go on. Simply documenting the fight over the 2004 ballot measure is a lot of work in itself, they say. But the project is also slated follow the science of stem cells and its evolving social implications for the next ten years.
"The issues are there already," Hughes says, "even if the $3 billion never comes through."
– Marcus Wohlsen