Union County oral histories at risk as partners seek sponsors

By Justin Strawser

jstrawser@dailyitem.com

LEWISBURG — The Union County Historical Society, Bucknell University and Union County’s America250PA Committee are seeking public partnerships to help digitize 220 interviews that reveal folkways and traditions of Central Pennsylvania throughout the 20th century.

The Oral Traditions Project, initiated by the Union County Bicentennial Commission in 1973, consists of 357 reel-to-reel recordings that are at risk of loss due to antiquated technology and the fragility of the original 50-year-old quarter-inch audio tapes. As part of the semiquincentennial celebration in 2026, the partner organizations launched the Sponsor a Story fundraiser to help bring the estimated $20,000 project to life through specialized professionals.

“It shouldn’t be done by amateurs,” Susan Falciani Maldonado, university archivist and director of special collections at Bucknell’s Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library, said. “If it goes wrong, it could go very wrong, and you risk irreparable damage.”

Kathy Swope, chair of the Union County America250PA Committee, said donors might be able to find interviews with their relatives or on topics they are passionate about.

“Whatever your interest is, there’s something here for you,” Swope said. “This is picking up where the Bicentennial Committee left off. It’s a perfect connection to the past. The idea of the 250th is to celebrate our nation, and this fits into the wonderful history we have in our area.”

Between 1974 and 1984, and spearheaded by Jeanette Lasansky, trained volunteers recorded interviews with a cross section of Union County residents selected to document skills, experiences and craft traditions typically transmitted orally across generations. Topics covered include home remedies, powwowing, quilting, one-room schools, superstitions, the suffrage movement, the Great Depression, blacksmithing, barn raising, agricultural practices, the impact of historic floods in the Susquehanna River Valley, customs of Pennsylvania German regional culture, folklore, burial practices, buggy making, distilling, square dancing and more.

“For three years, the Oral Traditions Project quietly worked at training volunteers of all ages and backgrounds on oral history techniques and the medium’s strengths and weaknesses, at identifying

See ORAL, Page B2

Susan Falciani Maldonado, the university archivist and director of special collections at Bucknell’s Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library, looks through files Friday related to the Oral Traditions Project stored at the Union County Historical Society, 103 S. Second St., Lewisburg.

Justin Strawser/The Daily Item

Susan Falciani Maldonado, the archivist and director of special collections at Bucknell’s Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library, holds an audio tape on Friday related to the Oral Traditions Project.

Justin Strawser/The Daily Item

ORAL, from Page B1 potential informants and then interviewing them, while continuing to enlarge the potential range of subject areas as well as informants,” Lasansky wrote in Folklife Magazine in 1990.

Several books were published, and an ongoing series of workshops, lectures, demonstrations, concerts and exhibitions followed the interviews in 1976, Lasansky wrote.

“Much still remains to be researched, interpreted and disseminated about this area’s material culture — even within geographic locations or about ethnic groups that have previously had some exposure,” Lasansky wrote. “The typical versus the unusual, the myths versus the realities of the various cultural communities will, through efforts of such research- oriented projects as Oral Traditions, be better understood. In some cases, traditions will continue in part because of the attention given to them through such efforts.”

The interviews were turned over to the historical society and stored in three large filing cabinets over the last five decades. The cabinets are now in a second-floor room at the society’s headquarters and gallery at 103 S. Second St., Lewisburg. Some of the interviews were previously transcribed but most remain hidden in the recordings, unable to be played due to the fragile nature of the tapes.

The historical society brought the tapes to Bucknell last year, but the university does not have the technology to digitize the record or the expertise to handle the fragile tapes. George Blood LP, of Washington, Pa., provided an estimate of approximately $20,000.

The society seeks not only to digitize the interviews but also to create searchable transcripts and preserve and make the material freely available online for the public, researchers, students and scholars. Bucknell University’s Special Collections/University Archives plans to make the recordings and transcripts available online via Preservica; however, there are future plans to also create an interactive and interpretive website, thanks to Bucknell’s Digital Pedagogy & Scholarship department.

In addition to having the interviews accessible, at that point, they hope to include digitized copies of the slides that accompany the project.

The society was unsuccessful in securing a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources. Organizers launched the Sponsor a Story fundraiser in January to help fund the project.

“These are local names and local traditions, so maybe the local community would like to support it,” Maldonado said.

A donation can support a particular interview for $50 per tape, or donors can choose a topic of interest to help bring to life. Gifts can be dedicated on behalf of a loved one or as a memorial, Maldonado said.

The tapes without transcripts will be prioritized first. The company will do the work in phases as donations come in, Maldonado said.

More information about donating, topics and interview subjects can be found at https://sites.google.com/ bucknell.edu/uchs-oral-traditions/ home.