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Listening to Indians Research Guide

A guide to the oral history collection of interviews with American Indian people conducted by Samuel I. Myers, Jr., history professor at St. Louis Community College - Florissant Valley during his sabbatical semester, Fall 1975.

What is a "memoirist"?

[Quoted from Myers' proposal to STLCC-FV for processing of the interview material]

These taped interviews represent the spontaneous, largely uninhibited, personal, even intimate opinions of the whole range of Indian individuals.  They are the candid views of American Indian people; gentle and militant, shy and aggressive, some dull, sometimes amazing.  They reflect opinions from poor people and from the successful, from the famous and the obscure.  All in all, they add a new dimension to the various materials now available: what it means to be an American Indian in the contemporary United States.

 

 

Purpose of the work

In the interview with George Fairbanks (Memoirist #16), Sam Myers concluded with the following.  "There is one other thing I can leave with you, so that we never have to feel that we have come to an end with this effort that we’re engaged in – making these recorded conversations.  I’m sure you have tape recorders here too, and if ever you have something that you want to put down on tape that I can use in my classes put in our library tape bank, and then that’s open to the public really, just like a library book is, you could make a tape and send it to me and I’ll include it…to tell the story the way you want it told."

Additional interviews not among "memoirists"

Additional interviews were conducted by Sam Myers which were not among the 144 interviews comprising the core collection.  These have not been transcribed.  The recordings for several are missing.

  • Bill Blankenship
  • Gary Colbert
  • Marty Cross
  • Hugh Edmo
  • Harley Hamilton
  • Helen Hardin
  • Tony Jojola
  • Woody Kipp
  • Billy Mills
  • Ron Olguin
  • Luana Platera
  • C. Fayne Porter
  • Myra Qualo
  • Johnny Robb
  • Evelena Sombrero
  • Zell Towersap
  • Faye R. Washburn
  • Darrel Wesley
  • Frank Whitebuffaloman

St. Louis Community College Libraries

Florissant Valley Campus Library
3400 Pershall Rd.
Ferguson, MO 63135-1408
Phone: 314-513-4514

Forest Park Campus Library
5600 Oakland
St. Louis, MO 63110-1316
Phone: 314-644-9210

Meramec Campus Library
11333 Big Bend Road
St. Louis, MO 63122-5720
Phone: 314-984-7797

Wildwood Campus Library
2645 Generations Drive
Wildwood, MO 63040-1168
Phone: 636-422-2000