Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
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Former names
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University of Florida Oral History Program |
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| Motto | One community, many voices |
| Type | Oral history program |
| Established | 1967 |
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Parent institution
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University of Florida |
| Director | Dr. Paul Ortíz |
| Location | Gainesville, Florida, United States |
| Nickname | SPOHP |
| Website | oral |
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The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) is the official oral history program at the University of Florida. With over 6,500 interviews and more than 150,000 pages of transcribed material, it is one of the premier oral history programs in the United States. SPOHP's mission is "to gather, preserve, and promote living histories of individuals from all walks of life." The program involves staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and community volunteers in its operation.
The program was founded by Dr. Samuel Proctor in 1967 as the University of Florida Oral History Program. Its original projects were collections centered around Florida history with the purpose of preserving eyewitness accounts of economic, social, political, religious and intellectual life in Florida and the South. Major projects focused on Native American, African American, military, and Florida county-specific history. Much of SPOHP’s early work was initiated by grants and support from the Doris Duke Foundation.
Dr. Samuel Proctor, the UF Oral History Program's original founder, was a prominent scholar of Florida history and a pioneer in the field of oral history in the United States. Dr. Proctor taught in the History Department at the University of Florida for fifty years, serving as the first official University of Florida Historian and Archivist and holding chairs as Distinguished Service Professor of History and Julian C. Yonge Professor of History. He was also the Director of the Center for Florida Studies and the History Curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Following Dr. Proctor's tenure, the directorship of the program was taken up by Dr. Julian Pleasants, who renamed the program in Proctor's honor and lead the program from 1996 to 2007. The program's current director is Dr. Paul Ortíz. Dr. Ortíz is an associate professor in the History Department and affiliated faculty with the Center For Latin American Studies and African American Studies Program who also currently serves as the President of the Oral History Association.
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