AMIA 2024

In 1973, Dr. Johnye Strickland founded the Oral History Program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. During her 52-year tenure at UALR, she and her students recorded hundreds of hours of interviews on open reel tapes, audio cassettes, and microcassettes. Thanks to a grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council, the UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture has digitized these recordings, making the stories they contain accessible again. This presentation will introduce the Johnye Strickland Collection, describe the grant project, and highlight some unique oral histories, including interviews with Vietnamese refugees, conversations with women in Arkansas politics, folk histories of Petit Jean Mountain, and discussions of craft with Arkansas poets. Strickland’s recordings feature an array of Arkansan voices – from those newly arrived to those long established – and the stories they tell enrich our understanding of this often-overlooked state’s cultural and political history.