Willa baum

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Willa Klug Baum was an internationally respected oral historianwhose pioneering work in oral history methodology and interview techniques served as the foundation for the establishment and growth of oral history as a unique academic discipline.

Born in Chicago on Oct. 4, 1926, Willa attended Whittier College, studying history under Professor Paul Smith, who once made the galling comment that Willa was his second-best student ever, after Richard Nixon. During her graduate studies at U.C. Berkeley, Willa became aware of [Hubert Howe Bancroft's [1]] interviews conducted in the 1860s and 1870s. Recognizing the tremendous historical value of these first hand accounts, Willa and fellow graduate student Corrine Lathrop Gilb set up an Oral History program at U.C. Berkeley, which later became known as the Regional Oral History Office ([ROHO]http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/). Willa became the director in 1958, a position she held until her retirement in 2000.

Under Willa’s directorship, ROHO amassed over 1,600 oral histories, filled with first-hand accounts of the participants in significant historical events primarily in California and the West. These permanent eyewitness accounts of history are on deposit at over 800 libraries worldwide, and stand as an invaluable resource to researchers worldwide.

ROHO established a reputation of being ahead-of-the-curve in identifying and documenting historical movements; for example, ROHO’s Suffragists and Women in Politics series began in the early 1970’s before most campuses had women’s studies programs. Similarly, ROHO’s early documentation of the disability rights movement now provides primary research materials for the new disability studies program at UC Berkeley.

Ongoing ROHO projects include oral histories of the wine industry, mining, the environmental movement, the Disability Rights Movement, the Free Speech movement, anthropology, UC history, engineering, science, biotechnology, music, architecture, and the arts. ROHO’s largest projects document California government from the Earl Warren Era to the present.

Upon her retirement, Willa was bestowed the Berkeley Citation for her service to UC Berkeley, the President’s Citation for her contributions to the University of California, and the Hubert Howe Bancroft Award for her leadership of ROHO.