Interviews

History of the Oral Histories

Between 1973 and 1977, historians Peter Gottlieb and Dennis Dickerson interviewed fifty-three African Americans who had lived and worked in the Pittsburgh area sometime during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Although their projects overlapped, it is unclear whether the two men knew of each other’s work. Gottlieb conducted his interviews while still a PhD candidate at Pitt, first for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Pittsburgh Oral History Project and later for his doctoral dissertation on Black migrants in Pittsburgh. Dickerson likewise conducted his interviews for his dissertation on Black steelworkers in western Pennsylvania. After earning his PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, Dickerson developed his dissertation into the book Out of the Crucible: Black Steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania, 1875-1980. Gottlieb likewise published Making their Own Way: Southern Blacks’ Migration to Pittsburgh, 1916-30. Both scholars went on to have distinguished careers in history, but the interviews they
conducted fell into relative obscurity.

The PA State Archives housed the interviews from the Pittsburgh Oral History Project, although it made copies of some of them for the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. Gottlieb donated his dissertation interviews to Pitt’s archives, and Dickerson eventually gave his interviews to the Heinz History Center. Until recently, none of the collections had been digitized.

Brought together here for the first time, the interviews compiled by Gottlieb and Dickerson collectively provide an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and general researchers interested in learning about the Great Migration through the perspectives of migrants.

Recordings of Southern Blacks’ Migration to Pittsburgh Oral History Project, 1973-77

Peter Gottlieb conducted these interviews for his doctoral dissertation, “Making Their Way: Southern Blacks’ Migration to Pittsburgh, 1916-1930.”  Gottlieb’s dissertation and subsequent book do not list the full names of interviewees.  Therefore, Archives & Special Collections at the University of Pittsburgh, where this collection is housed, has stipulated that no full names can be used or cited when using the interviews from this collection.  (Note that this restriction does not apply to the Dickerson and Pittsburgh Oral History Project collections.)  The links below lead to digitized recordings of the original interviews, interview summaries, and complete transcriptions.

Pittsburgh Oral History Project, 1974

Headed by Dr. John D. Bodnar, director of the Division of History of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Pittsburgh Oral History Project worked to preserve the perspectives of African Americans, Slovaks, Serbs, Ukrainians, and Poles in Pennsylvania.  The selection below includes the interviews of African Americans.  Peter Gottlieb interviewed most of them, although Major Mason interviewed the two participants from the McKeesport district.

Oral History Interviews of African American Steelworkers by Dennis Dickerson, 1975

Dennis Dickerson conducted these interviews in 1975 for his doctoral dissertation.  Although some of the participants were native Pennsylvanians, many were migrants from the South.  The interviews would later feature in Dickerson’s book, Out of the Crucible, published by SUNY Press in 1986.  In 1999, Dickerson donated the interviews to the Heinz History Center.