The Regional History Project was started in July of 1963 at a time when the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California was still in the planning stages. Its major purpose was to interview longtime residents of the Central California Coast area whose comments would add significantly to the sketchy and inadequate written history of the region. A number of the interviews have concentrated on the economic history of the area (e.g. redwood lumbering, coastal dairying, apple packing and shipping) although such interviews also cover the social and cultural history of the region. In 1967 the Project expanded its scope to include a series of interviews on University history and the Lick Observatory. As oral history projects in the country have proliferated so has student and academic interest. This office now works closely with both students and faculty, as well as with community historical organizations, in introducing oral history methodology and in encouraging the use of interviewing as a method for supplementing our local and regional archives.
Regional History employs one full-time documentary historian who does preparatory research, topic and interview selection, interviewing, editing, and teaching and lecturing small groups. We also have a part-time student editor who does research, prepares question outlines, performs numerous clerical tasks, transcribes interview tapes, edits, indexes, and puts together the oral history volumes, which are published in limited editions by the University. Although we are a small project, we have continued to reach out to both the academic community and the communities in this region to inform people about oral history, and in many cases, to help in the formation of volunteer oral history projects by providing consultation services and expertise.
In most cases the manuscripts are available for the cost of reproduction. Contact the project staff at ihreti@ucsc.edu or 831-459-2847 to place an order.
No part of any manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the University Librarian, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Other functions of the Project are to help acquire published and unpublished source materials for the Santa Cruz County Collection; to assist both researchers and students working on local history topics; to give instruction in oral history methodology; and generally to help in developing and augmenting local history sources.