The Palimpsest

Pounds, Diana

English

Suffragists, Free Love, and the Woman Question

Kuecker, Susan

In Good Iowa Style': The Kelsey Letters, 1848 to 1882

The Palimpsest, vol.72 no.2, Summer 1991

Fish, Donald E

A Stakeout for Bonnie and Clyde

Robinson, Lauren Pille

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Marie: “We went to the river — the English 
River bridge — and threw flowers over the 
bridge. We d throw bouquets off into the 
water, which was symbolic of the sailors.
Grace: “The hardier ones — Mother would 
never let 1 1 s go — would go down to the river 
and they’d have saved some [flowers] and 
[would] put some in the river for the people 
who were lost at sea.”
Delbert: They’d have a speaker at St.
Mary’s Hall and get everybody wound up. 
They’d usually get some politician . . .  or 
some would-be politician . . . it’d be an 
oration, you know. . . . Somebody d give the 
Gettysburg Address. 1 think Hazel Blythe’d 
be there to play the piano and sing a few 
patriotic hymns. Then there’d be a big ball 
game in the afternoon.
Grace: They’d have the veterans up on stage 
. . . each year there’d be one or two less.”
Delbert: “I think that they had something 
that we don’t have now. They had different 
feelings. More of a sense of duty maybe, you 
might say. I don’t know — were those the 
good old days?” □
Linking Photos 
and Oral History
by Lauren Pille Robinson
SEVERAL YEARS AGO my friend, Grace Dautre- 
mont of Riverside, Iowa, gave me a collection of old 
photographs. (Some of these appear on the previous 
pages.) The photographs pictured Riverside during 
the early years of the century. Most were signed hv 
the photographer, William Crozier. Besides other 
subjects and events, there are pictures of Memorial 
Day parades in which nearly every man, woman, 
and child in Riverside appears to be taking part.
Commenting on the tendency to read meanings 
into photographs, oral historian Paul Thompson 
writes in Edwardians in Photographs: “The camera 
may not lie, but what kind of truth does it tell? 
. . . Photographs are silent, but we cannot rest with 
that: we need to see meaning in them. And where 
no message is given, we invent one. Most old pho­
tographs, therefore, are half pieces of history, half 
out of our own minds. . . . Photographs do not con­
vey the consciousness of the people in them — why 
they were doing what they were doing and what 
they felt about it.
I wondered about the people in Crozier’s pho­
tographs — and about Riverside. Were the people 
as comfortable together as they looked? Did every­
one actually take part in the Memorial Day fes­
tivities? Was their sense of community reallv that 
strong? Or was that something I saw there because I 
wanted to see it? The photographs, of course, could 
not answer these questions by themselves.
Establishing Context
In spring 1986, I started formulating an idea for a 
master’s project in journalism based on the River­
side photographs and my questions. I began my 
research with written sources, including such gen­
eral overviews as Frederick Lewis Allen’s Only Yes­
terday. This book looks at the events of the 1920s as 
they affected the daily lives of oridinary men and 
women. The general history in the hook was useful, 
too, in helping me establish a historical context in 
which to work. I also read about Iowa, Washington 
County, and Riverside. I obtained microfilm copies 
of the Riverside Leader, the newspaper that was 
published in Riverside throughout the decade. 
Thompson cautions historians about relying too
88 THE PALIMPSEST
r
much on newspapers as a source. In The Voice of the 
Past: Oral History, he writes, Few historians 
would deny the bias in contemporary reporting or 
accept what the press presents at face value, but in 
using newspapers to reconstruct the past much less 
caution is normally shown. This is because they are 
rarely able to unravel the possible sources of distor­
tion in old newspapers.
Thus the evidence which historians cite from 
newspapers suffers not only from the possibility of 
inaccuracy at its source, which is normally either an 
eyewitness account or an interview report by the 
journalist,” Thompson continues. It is also 
selected, shaped, and filtered through a particular, 
but to the historian, uncertain, bias.
\\ ith Thompson s caution in mind, I carefully 
scanned the newspapers for information that would 
help me establish a background from which to seek 
more detailed information. In spite of its obvious 
pro-Riverside bias, the Leader was helpful in two 
ways. First, it pointed out for me the community 
events it considered important. Second, the 
Leaders stories and advertisements suggested the 
economic temper of the times.
Finally I turned to oral history as a way to find 
more answers. By “oral history,” I mean simply the 
interviewing of a source in order to find out — and 
record — information about past events that may 
not be available in any other form. I decided to ask 
three long-time Riversiders to help me. Marie 
Havel, Delbert Flynn, and Grace Dautremont 
were excellent choices. They are articulate and 
intelligent people, keen observers with excellent 
memories. They were physically well enough that 
the interview process would not be a hardship for 
them. And they seemed genuinely interested in the 
project and wanted to be a part of it. I had another, 
more personal reason for choosing Marie, Delbert, 
and Grace. They’re three of my favorite people and 
lots of fun to be with. I wouldn’t have missed their 
acute observations and witty comments for any­
thing.
Before I began the interviews, I read several 
books and articles about oral history techniques and 
procedures. The most helpful was Willa K. Baum’s 
Oral History for the Local Historical Society. 
Thompson’s The Voice of the Past: Oral History was 
also very helpful in this regard. Initially, I tried to 
use more open-ended, statement-type questions, 
rather than asking specific, information-seeking 
questions. For example, I would say, “Tell me 
about Memorial Day,” not “What did you do in the 
morning on Memorial Day?” I felt that the first type 
of question would be more likely to elicit a wide 
range of freely chosen detail than the second type of
question. 1 expected that additional topics for ques­
tions would then arise as I talked with Marie, 
Grace, and Delbert. They did. Band concerts led 
into bootlegging and downtown Saturday night sto­
ries. Downtown Saturday night stories, in turn, 
became reminiscences about Riverside’s business 
district. Remembering Memorial Day sparked 
interesting details about clothing and family 
customs.
Using Photographs
I conducted the first interviews with each source 
without using William Crozier s photographs. I 
held the pictures in reserve until later rounds in the 
interviews, hoping they would elicit more details. I 
wanted to see for myself how much memory was 
dependent on the prompts provided by the pic­
tures. Here, though, I was disappointed. While 
some additional details were recalled when inter­
viewees looked at the photographs, the pho­
tographs also seemed to hamper memory. The free 
recall that a relaxed source enjoyed while talking 
with me seemed to vanish and be replaced by a 
furrowed brow and a serious effort to remember as 
the same source looked at photographs. If 1 were to 
continue this project, I think I would try to deter­
mine how I could have presented the photographs 
differently.
After the interviews, I spent much time tran­
scribing, editing, and arranging the material into a 
readable and interesting format. This Palimpsest 
presents only a small selection of the photos, in­
terviews, insights, and methodologies from the 
finished project, They Didn't Play No Jazz: An Oral 
History of Riverside, Iowa, in the Roaring Twen­
ties. (Copies are in both State Historical Society 
libraries.)
And now that it’s all done — what do I think is the 
value of oral history? Oral history can record infor- 
mation about the usual and the commonplace and 
often investigates those who have no important 
public accomplishments — people who have lived 
unexceptional lives. Oral history records a personal 
view of public events. Family anecdotes and tradi­
tions may be recovered in an interview and be 
committed to printed form. Finally, recording 
voices often conveys information about the speak­
ers, about the quality of their memories and their
reliability.¥
Historians will long argue whether oral history 
provides accurate information. But for me, the 
point of oral history is that it strengthens our ten­
uous webs of connection with other human beings. 
Besides, it’s a lot of fun. □
SUMMER 1991 89


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Suffragists, Free Love, and the Woman Question

In Good Iowa Style': The Kelsey Letters, 1848 to 1882

The Palimpsest, vol.72 no.2, Summer 1991

A Stakeout for Bonnie and Clyde

Linking Photos and Oral History

People, Places, Perspectives: Another Look at the Founding Fathers

Incursions of Modern Art in the Regionalist Heartland

The Palimpsest, vol.72 no.3, Fall 1991

The Palimpsest, vol.72 no.4, Winter 1991

The Victorian Holiday Season

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