Columbia Center for Oral History Research

Located within Butler Library, Columbia University Center for Oral History Research is the oldest oral history program. Pulitzer Prize winner Allan Nevins founded the program in 1948. There is an extensive list of projects belonging to the center, both current and completed. Currently the office holds 8,000 taped memoirs and 1,000,000 pages of transcripts.

Policy was a passion for Allan Nevins, and that inspired him to form the Center for Oral History Research, or more specifically the Columbia University Oral History Research Office. Public policy often has an overload of written information and interview would be helpful in directing research. Nevis requested funding from Columbia University but barely received any—just enough to pay a few employees. The phrase he received from the University was "You'll never receive any operational funding from Columbia" which proved to be false. The center has had 4 directors including Nevins, including, Ronald J. Grele, and Mary Marshall Clark who is the current director as of June 2001. It wasn't until Clark's time as director that the center gained enough funding to be able to complete extensive projects and partnered with INCITE.

Columbia Center for Oral History (CCOH) is made up of two complimentary centers, the Columbia Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR) and the Columbia Center for Oral History Archives (CCOHA). The archives are housed within Butler Library while the research center is part of INCITE (Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics). The research center seeks funding for projects (mentioned in ). The results of these projects are sent to the archives to be stored and used as source material for future research. Creating another source of reliable information like this was a goal of founder Allan Nevins.

Projects put together by the CCOHR are stored in their archives and consist of as much information as can be found on the subject. Some notable examples are below.

These are the current oral history research projects for Columbia Center for Oral History

This project compiled about 70 hours of narrative discussing the Apollo Theater through the lens of African-American history, the history of music and performance, and the history of New York City. The primary interviewers are Brent Hayes Edwards and Steve Rowland who were assisted by Gustavo Azendha, Karald Kisiedu, and Jennella Young. The funding for this project was provided by the Apollo Theater Foundation who receive their support from Edward and Leslye Phillips Family Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and New York Community Trust.

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