Cisco College Oral History Collection

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Duane Hale, professor at Cisco College, began requiring his history students to conduct oral history interviews in 1995. This assignment, titled “In Pursuit of the American Dream: An Oral History Project Linking Past, Present and Future,” has continued every subsequent semester. Hale teaches US History (and occasionally Texas History) primarily at the Abilene campus of Cisco College.

Size of Collection: 148 boxes; 5,341 interviews

Scope and Contents: The collection consists of over 5,300 interviews conducted between 1995 and 2019. Interviews are rooted in the Big Country region of Texas (Abilene and surrounding counties). Interviewees primarily were born between 1920 and 1950 (but include subjects born between 1898 and 1985). We estimate over two-thirds of the interviewees were born in Texas with many second or third generation Texans, but there are also interviewees discussing growing up in Mexico and across the world. Topics focus on early childhood recollections, family and home life, personal beliefs, marriage and children, technological innovations, changes in urban and rural environments, military service (WWII, Korea, and Vietnam), and remembrances of historical events (Kennedy assassination, moon landing, Nixon resigning, 9/11, and 2016 election). Of special interest are interviews from subjects born during the Dust Bowl, growing up on farms across West Texas, as well as sharecroppers and migrant workers. This collection has an internal database that can be searched by the A/V archivist. To find out more about specific locations, dates, topics, keywords, or subjects, contact the SWC/SCL.

List of Questions provided to students by Dr. Hale:
1. When were you born?
2. Where were you born?
3. What were your first memories?
4. Tell me about your parents.
5. Tell me about your brothers and sisters.
6. How about your grandparents and aunts and uncles.
7. Is there any family stories that you remember?
8. What is the best time in your life at home?
9. Remembering bad times at home.
10. As a young person what was your favorite thing to do?
11. What kind of clothes did you wear?
12. Things you like to do and hated to do.
13. What was your greatest ambition?
14. The first loves of your life.
15. What do you believe or don't believe?
16. How did you make your first money?
17. What traveling did you do?
18. About your marriages: how many times and how long?
19. How many children?
20. What do you wish for?
21. How old were you when you learned to drive and first car?
22. What is your opinion about this time in the world?
23. Tell me about the inventions and world events while you were growing up.
24. Do you have any political views?
25. Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?
26. Were the 60's any different for you than other times in your life?
27. What kind of advice would you give your grandchildren and great-grandchildren?

Summary of Project, written by Dr. Hale, included on release forms provided to interviewees:
Webster has defined history as what has happened in the life or development of a people, country,