More than 1,800 oral histories of Wisconsin veterans, dating back to the program’s start in 1994, are on cassette tapes, CDs and now digital recordings.
The museum hired its first full-time oral historian in 2011 for a two-year term. The position becomes permanent later this summer, though it will no longer be full-time, according to Museum Director Michael Telzrow.
Oral historian Molly Graham expanded the program by training people at the Veterans Home in King, hospitals and local military history groups to record oral histories. She also started an ambitious project to digitize all of the recordings, many of which are on cassette, with the goal of eventually offering oral histories online.
The museum now has 1,857 oral histories of veterans, with more added weekly.
