Rachel Gelfand, Ph.D.

I have participated in every aspect of the oral history process. I have transcribed, coded, and interviewed for projects outside my areas of research. I have also planned and conducted my own oral histories collections which I contributed to archives at the Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library and UNC’s Southern Oral History Program.

Here is a sample of the breadth of my oral history work: Transcriptionist for an oral history project on the Vietnam draft lottery (2004), Transcript Editor for the 888 Women’s History Project (2006, 2009), Oral Documentation Intern for a project on sacred sites of the Winnemem Wintu (2008), Audio Archive Volunteer at the Freedom Archives (2008), Field Interviewer for the Robert Rosenbaum Oral History Project in Philadelphia (2010), Field Interviewer for academic research on feminism in the digital age (2014), Tape Log Editor for Media and the Movement Project at Digital Humanities Lab (2016), and Transcription and Metadata Specialist for Black Lunch Table (2017).

Previous Projects

• Through funding from the Schlesinger Library Oral History Grant, I conducted interviews with lesbian and trans parents in the Boston area who had children in the early 1980s. This project uses a life history model and engages with key questions lesbian and trans experience during decades of activism, AIDS loss, and . This work draws on oral histories and utilizes archival sources such as Gay Community News. Its themes include childhood in the McCarthy era, the civil rights movement, antiwar activism, gay liberation, the women’s health movement, non-biological parenting, gender identity, pregnancy, class identity, racial and ethnic identity, donor agreements, and AIDS.

• At the Southern Oral History Program, I began interviews with activists that helped form the Atlanta Lesbian/Feminist Alliance (ALFA). This work explored oral history as a method in which I interviewed narrators with whom I was close and those I was meeting for the first time. In addition to traditional life history interviews, I conducted short interviews in untraditional places–in the archives, in the car, at the locations of events of ALFA history. More of this project can be viewed here: Atlanta Lesbian/Feminist Alliance

Third Trimester Interviews, Family Histories, and Genealogy

I conduct interviews with pregnant individuals and partners on the precipice of having a baby. This interview offers new parents (and not new parents) an opportunity to capture a moment in time. The interview package ranges from raw audio to edited interviews with audio montages.