The Tabb Center offers public oral history workshops in collaboration with local curators, archivists, and representatives of Baltimore Speaks, a network of oral historians. Attendees gain a working knowledge of oral history: a field of study and a method of recording, preserving, and interpreting people’s experiences of the past through the prism of the present.
In this section
Past Workshops
Documenting Trans Oral History: Lessons from the Tretter Project
“Documenting Trans Oral History,” an oral history workshop and public talk in December 2022, featured Andrea Jenkins and Myrl Beamfrom the Minneapolis-based Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, a program committed to collecting, preserving, and making available oral histories of gender transgression, broadly understood through a trans framework.
Press coverage: Rowan Liu, “Tabb Center Hosts Speakers to Present on Intricacies of Transgender Oral History,” December 10, 2022
Building Power Through Documenting Trans Oral Histories
Saturday, December 3, 2022
6:00pm – 7:30pm
Bird in Hand Café & Bookstore
Andrea Jenkins and Myrl Beam shared lessons from their work with the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, reflecting on the power of storytelling to help build movements for justice that enable trans lives to flourish.
Doing Trans Oral History: Ethics, Politics, and Community-Building
Saturday, December 3, 2022
2:00pm – 4:00pm
Impact Hub Baltimore
This public workshop, led by Andrea Jenkins and Myrl Beam from the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, was a practical introduction to the process of doing oral history.
Doing Oral History in Baltimore
“Doing Oral History in Baltimore,” a series of three workshops in April 2022, supported individuals and institutions in recording, archiving, and interpreting under-documented histories in Baltimore, with a focus on the city’s Black history.
Press coverage: Jamie Crow, “Retelling Baltimore History through Community Narratives,” The Hub, May 6, 2022.
Why Oral History Matters and Project Planning
Saturday, April 2, 2022, 10:30am-1:30pm
Oral history as a social justice project, project design, ethical and legal issues
Reginald F. Lewis Museum
830 E Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21202
Workshop facilitators:
- Hosted by: Angela Koukoui, Co-Director of JHU/UB Community Archives Program, University of Baltimore
- Kelly E. Navies, Museum Specialist in Oral History at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Tonika Berkley, Co-Director of JHU/UB Community Archives Program, Johns Hopkins University
- Debra Elfenbein, Special Collections Librarian, Enoch Pratt Free Library
The Art and Craft of Interviewing
Saturday, April 9, 2022, 10:30am-1:30pm
Doing an interview–before, during, and after.
Reginald F. Lewis Museum
830 E Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21202
Workshop facilitators:
- Hosted by: Angela Koukoui, Co-Director of JHU/UB Community Archives Program, University of Baltimore
- Linda Shopes, Independent Oral Historian, Baltimore Speaks
- Bria Warren, Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts Community Archives Fellow, Baltimore Speaks
Transcribing, Archiving, and Mobilizing Oral History
Saturday, April 23, 2022, 10:30am-1:30pm
Archival practices, exhibitions, publications, and community organizing.
Eubie Blake Cultural Center
847 N Howard St, Baltimore, MD 21201
Workshop Facilitators:
- Hosted by: Angela Koukoui, Co-Director of JHU/UB Community Archives Program, University of Baltimore
- Aiden Faust, Associate Director of Special Collections and Archives, University of Baltimore
- Catherine Mayfield, Maryland Center for History and Culture, Baltimore Speaks
- Joseph Plaster, Inheritance Baltimore, Tabb Center
- Panel facilitated by Sheri Parks, MICA’s Vice President for Strategic Initiatives