Like all students taking a history seminar last fall, Cynthia Paces’ class learned about the past. The only difference is that instead of reading about it in books, her students got the story from living persons.

It was all part of a new course in oral history taught by Paces. Eleven students taking her senior seminar were required to interview a person about a memorable aspect of his or her life that coincided with an area of historical significance.

According to Paces, oral history became popular in the 1970s and experienced a resurgence in the 1990s. Part of the reason Paces likes the field so much is that, "Oral history gives people a voice when they didn’t have one before. We can’t know exactly what happened in the past. There’s not just one truth."

Students recorded their interviews with their subjects, verifying and supporting their discoveries with extensive library research. Paces said that like every other class, different students received different things from the class.

"The seminar was a unique way of learning—delving into a topic, doing research, and piecing it together," Maureen Camphire ’00 said, "especially the personal interviews. You can learn so much by listening to people."

Though Paces guided the students, she could not help them every step of the way. She said that sometimes an interviewee would not talk about an emotional issue or would get angry because of a certain question.

"Everyone had something happen in the midst of this that was troubling," Paces said. "You can’t always get people to say what you want them to say.

"There’s a sense among some students that when you’re writing a paper, you work real hard, but in the end, it’s really only being written for one person—the professor. I wanted it to last longer than that," said Paces.

Indeed, it has. All of the students’ reports are available at the library, and Paces plans to begin a Web site this fall that will archive the projects. Thumbing through the neatly bound copies of the reports from last year, Paces said students became aware of their interviewees in various ways. While one student spoke to her grandmother, another student went all the way to Florida to speak to a Jewish labor camp survivor.

One of the reports, written by Christina Nightingale ’00, was an interview with Harry Brockington, a Naval veteran of World War I. Brockington has died since Nightingale interviewed him, but she came to know him well during their talks. She even invited him to her family’s Christmas dinner when she discovered he’d be spending the day alone.

"He was the life of the party," Nightingale said. "Here was a 100-year-old man who lived on his own, cooked on his own, and still drove. It was really amazing."

Nightingale described her initial meeting with Brockington at his Vincentown home as a memorable experience. "A few moments after I knocked on the door, a thin, older man with winged-tipped glasses and a Mr. Rogers outfit appeared behind the glass. I had to contain my surprise to see such an energetic, mobile and talkative 99-year-old man."

An excerpt from Nightingale’s report provides a glimpse into the process of learning through oral history: Well, as far as we could find out, Chris, there was a submarine U-151 that came from Germany loaded with mines. She dumped mines off the East Coast here all the way up to New York, up to Fire Island. I think they came over in early 1918. They might have come over in 1917 when we entered the war with Germany. I imagine the mines we set up were at least 20 miles off, where big ships go. They wanted the big ships to hit the mines, not the small ones. The big ships were at least 20 miles off shore when they were coming in or going out.

Mr. Brockington’s claim of the U-151 leaving mines off the East Coast to target larger ships was substantiated by the work of Henry J. James. Traveling at a depth of 35 meters, the U-151’s main objective was to plant mines in two areas: off the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay to catch ships leaving Baltimore and off the Delaware to intercept ships outward bound from the Delaware Bay.

Yet in addition to all of the important historical information Brockington shared with Nightingale, one comment that he made about his minesweeping efforts will always stay with her. "What we were doing was saving lives, not killing," Mr. Brockington told her. "I’m proud to say that."

Brockington was determined to make it to his 100th birthday—and did, but died just weeks later. Nightingale took Brockington’s death very hard. Every morning, she said, he would lift up his bedroom shade to let his neighbors know he was okay. But one day, the shade stayed down, she said.