Practice question · Multiple choice
Why is oral history often the only available source for some subjects?
Hints
- Recall the three filters: recorded, kept, survived.
- Who generated no paper at all?
Show the answer
A. The archive's filters exclude those who left no documents
Why
The filters tilt toward the literate and powerful, so for the twentieth-century working class, women’s work, migration, and colonial rule from below, testimony is not a supplement, it is frequently the entire evidentiary base.
Practise Oral History and Testimony
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