Military Women’s Memorial Oral History Collection (2000)
Reviewed by: Cathy Melamed
Review date: February 20, 2025
Site Link: https://womensmemorial.starter1ua.preservica.com/
Archive Link: https://archive.ph/xvrBm
Keywords: Feminist Studies, History, Archiving, U.S. Military
Data Sources:
- Audio and video recordings
- Photographs
Processes:
- The project began creating audio and video recordings in 2000.
- The audio and video recordings and photographs have been digitized for this project.
- The recordings vary in style and quality, and they range in length from 30 minutes to over five hours.
Presentation:
The Military Women’s Memorial Oral History Collection is an online repository with over 1400 digitized recordings of women describing their lives and service in the U.S. armed forces. About 400 of these are accessible on the website. The oral history collection functions as a portal of the Military Women’s Memorial website. The landing page features a brief description of the collection and a call-to-action button that takes users to the oral history recordings. The recordings are organized on tiles alphabetically by the subjects’ last names; some tiles have a preview of the subject’s biography, and some feature a photograph, video screengrab or a page of the interview’s transcription. Clicking on a tile takes the user to a page that features the recording, the subject’s biography, the digital file’s metadata, and sometimes an image of the service member. Some of these images have a zoom feature. The recordings are searchable by date or keyword.
Digital Tools Used:
- Divi
- PHP
- WordPress
- MySQL
- JavaScript
- Bootstrap
Languages:
- English
Review
The Military Women’s Memorial Oral History Collection is an initiative of the Military Women’s Memorial, which is located at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The Memorial features an education center and exhibition space, and it hosts the only historical documents repository dedicated to women in the U.S. military. The oral history collection was developed in partnership with the U.S. Library of Congress Veterans History Project.
The collection’s strength is the powerful memories shared by women who served in the military as long ago as World War I. Some interviews are audio only, but there are many videos that feature the women describing their lives in service. The videos often have a distinct home-movie feel to them; this adds both an authentic time-stamp and unique candor. Not all the interviewers were as prepared or skilled as one might wish. For example, the interviewer for a colonel with remarkable accomplishments, particularly in chemistry (Manhattan Project, rocket launches) and in medicine (the first female doctor to serve in the regular Army corps), often seemed surprised by those achievements and, unfortunately, did not explore them in depth. Pleasant and surprising inclusions to the collection include interviews with non-American women who served in other countries’ militaries but who worked alongside Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan and other deployment areas.
The link connecting the oral histories back to the Military Women's Memorial home page doesn’t work as intended, and this is unfortunate, as more information about the collection is available on that site. The main site also provides forms for women who would like to contribute their memories to the project. Navigation throughout the oral history site is simple. The visitor-facing elements are easy to read, but the information on the individual subjects’ tiles can be incomplete or redundant (for example, a woman’s branch of military service and rank are rarely listed in the text, but the text repeats that it is an oral history). It appears that different hands helped create the tiles at different times; more consistency in presentation would add clarity. There are buttons that allow visitors to share the oral histories via email and social media. A keyword search is possible, and the interviews can be organized “by date,” although as there are no dates listed on the tiles, this feature is not helpful. Summaries of almost all the interviews are provided. Transcriptions are sometimes available; indicating this more prominently would improve user experience.
Overall, the Military Women’s Memorial Oral History Collection succeeds in its goal of sharing the lived experiences of women in the U.S. armed forces. There are stories of going against family expectations to join the service; of being the only female; and of serving in multiple wars over several decades. The collection is a unique resource with a clean interface and is easily accessible to researchers, educators and most online visitors.
How are the collaborative aspects reflected in the project and are there elements that work particularly well?
The project is a collaboration between the Military Women’s Memorial and the U.S. Library of Congress Veterans History Project. Women are invited to contribute to the collection by filling out online forms to request an interview. The collection works with outside agencies to help document the women’s oral histories.
Do you see an opportunity for collaboration that would be helpful to the project?
The collection has tremendous potential to enhance exhibitions at the Memorial and at other institutions around the country.