What Subjects and Collections Are Covered in the UNT Oral History Program Archives?

Updated

The UNT Oral History Program archives center on local, state, and U.S. history, with named strengths in World War II, Texas politics, Texas business, the New Deal in Texas, civil rights, and immigration. If your research touches any of those areas, the collection is likely relevant; the program also states that its strengths are "not limited to" that list, so it is worth searching the collection directly rather than assuming your topic is out of scope.

The collection's stated strengths

According to the program's own description, the collection's strengths include:

  • World War II history — a collection of over 1,000 interviews with WWII veterans, the single largest area named
  • Texas political history
  • Texas business history
  • History of the New Deal in Texas
  • Civil rights history
  • Immigration history

The program frames these as highlights rather than a complete inventory. Interviews cover "a wide variety of subject matter" recorded to preserve local, state, and U.S. history, so a topic outside the six areas above may still be represented.

How the interviews are preserved and accessed

Nearly all interview recordings are transcribed. Transcripts are edited, bound, and archived in Willis Library, where they are available to scholarly researchers and the general public through UNT Special Collections.

That matters for planning: in most cases you will be working from a transcript rather than the raw audio, and access to the archived transcripts runs through Special Collections rather than the program office itself.

Finding specific interviews

Two entry points are described on the site:

  1. The program's own collection pages — the site provides a collection page with information on individual interviews and collections, plus a search function for the collection and a browse-by-last-name option.
  2. The Texas Oral History Locator Database (TOLD) — the program's collection is also listed in this online resource, which is useful if you want to check whether relevant interviews exist across multiple Texas oral history programs at once.

If you need a transcript you cannot view remotely, the program notes that you can order interview transcripts, and you can also arrange an in-person visit to the Oral History office.

Practical details for a visit or inquiry

  • Office location: General Academic Building (GAB), Suite 107, lower level, on UNT's main campus in Denton, Texas
  • Mailing address: UNT Oral History Program, 1155 Union Circle #305430, Denton, TX 76203
  • Phone: 940-565-2549

The program is affiliated with the UNT Department of History and supported by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and UNT Libraries, and it maintains partnerships with local history societies, historical museums, and local, state, and national agencies.

Who the collection is for

Beyond archiving interviews, the program trains UNT students in oral history theory and methods and runs workshops for community members who want to preserve their own histories. So if your interest is methodological rather than purely topical, the program is also a teaching and training resource, not just a repository.