Oral History: The Folk Connection Barbara Allen

Barbara Allen, Folklorist and Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame, has considered the relation of oral history and folklore in the article. She has defined folklore as "the creative expression of the everyday life of ordinary people" and oral history as "the method of collecting historical data" to establish a link between the two; that means "formatting historical experience in a creative way". According to these definitions, this issue implies the focus of oral history on "content" and folklore on "format" or "form". Accordingly, the historians always speak about "memory" and Folklorists about "story or narrative". This link also implies the fact oral history is not quite folklore in its words and folklore is not purely historical in content but this is the link between the two that keeps the "past" alive.