The Oral History Collection at UNC-Charlotte began in the 1960's, with a grant request by Dr. Bonnie Cone for the "Caroliniana Oral History Project," a "creative new project covering new ground" that would involve the library and an advisory board of faculty and community representatives to plan interviews with "North Carolinian writers, politicans, educators, businessmen, and other leading citizens." While a formal advisory board did not materialize, oral history at UNCC did when, in 1967, Mr. LeGette Blythe, journalist, biographer, and writer in residence at UNCC, began interviewing prominent North Carolinians. These reel to reel recordings provide the origins of our collection.

In 1979, the collection was expanded when historian Dr. Ed Perzel and a handful of dedicated volunteers collected 79 oral history interviews in cooperation with WSOC radio station. The goal was to record elderly citizens across the city and county, as they reminisced about their youth and early experiences from 1890 through World War II.

Since that time the collection has grown to over 1800 interviews, collected in part by faculty, staff, and students on a wide range of topics related to local and regional history. We serve as the repository for oral histories collected by University departments, such as the History and English departments, and for community institutions partnering with UNC Charlotte. Additionally, Special Collections staff collect oral interviews to complement and fill gaps in our local history collections.

As our collections continue to grow, we strive to improve access to the interviews and to preserve them for the future. Our goal is to organize and prepare the interviews for research use by students, faculty and the general public. In keeping with that goal and thanks to grants from NC ECHO and the State Library of North Carolina, we were able to create New South Voices, a growing database of transcripts and audio of interviews from our collections.

For more information about the Oral History Collection, contact Katie McCormick.