Kentucky Oral History Commission

The Kentucky Oral History Commission is a nationally recognized program that has provided for the collection of more than 25,000 oral history interviews.

From tenant farmers and lay midwives to political leaders and nationally acclaimed authors, the Kentucky Oral History Commission (KOHC) reaches across the state to record and preserve the diverse stories that are a part of Kentucky's rich and colorful history. A grant program that provides financial and technical assistance to academic and community oral historians is responsible for the collection of the majority of interviews. The commission also offers workshops, sponsors state conferences, and participates in collaborative projects with other agencies and institutions.

Since 1976 the Kentucky Oral History Commission has:

Awarded more than 400 grants to individuals, colleges, universities and community organizations, resulting in the collection of more than 25,000 interviews located at repositories throughout the state.

Established a collection of nearly 8,000 interviews, one of the largest in the United States, at the Kentucky Historical Society.

Conducted more than 180 workshops.

Completed a statewide survey and published a guide to oral history collections in 1991 that identified 214 collections at 49 repositories and included a name index to nearly 14,000 interviews. The statewide guide was updated in 2003 and is now available on the Kentucky Historical Society Web site.

Initiated a statewide project on the family farm in Kentucky that collected more than 500 interviews.

Conducted a multi-year project to document the civil rights movement in Kentucky and to produce educational programs based on the oral history collection. More than 200 interviews have been collected and transcribed. The award winning project also produced eight radio programs, two performance pieces, and the documentary "Living the Story: The Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky" that was produced for the commission by Video Editing Services in Lexington in 2002 and has been broadcast on Kentucky Educational Television six times. Two symposiums were presented on the civil rights project and in 2005 the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky online database was launched.