Willa Klug Baum (October 4, 1926 – May 18, 2006) was an

oral historian Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

whose pioneering work in oral history methodology and interview techniques served as the foundation for the establishment of oral history as a discipline. Born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Baum attended

Whittier College Whittier College (Whittier Academy (1887–1901)) is a private liberal arts college in Whittier, California. It is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and, as of fall 2022, had approximately 1,300 (undergraduate and graduate) students. It was ...

, studying history under Professor Paul Smith, who once called Willa his second-best student ever, after

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

. During her graduate studies at

U.C. Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

, Baum learned of

Hubert Howe Bancroft Hubert Howe Bancroft (May 5, 1832 – March 2, 1918) was an American historian and ethnologist who wrote, published and collected works concerning the western United States, Texas, California, Alaska, Mexico, Central America and British Columbi ...

's interviews conducted in the 1860s and 1870s. Recognizing the historical value of these accounts, Baum and fellow graduate student Corinne Lathrop Gilb set up an Oral History program at U.C. Berkeley, which later became the

Regional Oral History Office The Oral History Center (ROHO) is part of The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. The office was founded in 1954. ROHO conducts, analyzes, teaches about, and preserves oral history interviews on a wide range of topics rela ...

. Baum became the director in 1958, a position she held until her retirement in 2000. Under Baum's directorship, ROHO amassed over 1,600 oral histories, filled with first-hand accounts of the participants in significant historical events in California and the West. These eyewitness accounts of history are on deposit at over 800 libraries worldwide, and stand as an invaluable resource to researchers worldwide. ROHO worked quickly to recognize and document historical movements; for example, ROHO's Suffragists and Women in Politics series began in the early 1970s before most campuses had women's studies programs. Similarly, ROHO's early documentation of the disability rights movement now provides primary research materials for the new disability studies program at UC Berkeley. Ongoing ROHO projects include oral histories of the wine industry, mining, the

environmental movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists a ...

, the Disability Rights Movement, the Free Speech movement, anthropology, UC history, engineering, science, biotechnology, music, architecture, and the arts. ROHO's largest projects document California government from the Earl Warren Era to the present. Upon her retirement, Baum was bestowed the Berkeley Citation for her service to UC Berkeley, the President's Citation for her contributions to the University of California, and the Hubert Howe Bancroft Award for her leadership.

External links

Regional Oral History Office website Oral History of Willa BaumArticle: "Reel History: While California talked, Willa Baum listened"Online Archive: Willa K. Baum Papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baum, Willa 20th-century American historians 1926 births 2006 deaths Whittier College alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni American women historians 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women