This is the second of three Door 15 profiles of University of Alaska scholars recognized for their distinguished service to the humanities at the 2010 Governor’s Awards for the Arts & Humanities.
Last fall the Alaska Humanities Forum honored Dr. William Schneider for his work documenting the oral histories of Alaska residents – personal stories that help define the many communities he has visited during nearly four decades devoted to preserving Alaskans' history and heritage.
This is the second of three Door 15 profiles of University of Alaska scholars recognized for their distinguished service to the humanities at the 2010 Governor’s Awards for the Arts & Humanities.
Last fall the Alaska Humanities Forum honored Dr. William Schneider for his work documenting the oral histories of Alaska residents – personal stories that help define the many communities he has visited during nearly four decades devoted to preserving Alaskans' history and heritage.
It all began, Schneider says, with a visit to Beaver, a community founded as the river terminus for freighting mining supplies up to the gold mining at Chandalar Lake. Although a small community with less than 100 residents, Beaver's uniquely multicultural population included in its history descendents of Japanese, Eskimo, Gwich’in Athabascan, and Koyukon Athabascans. The tiny Alaskan town piqued the young anthropology student's interest and became the subject of his doctoral dissertation for Bryn Mawr College.
“I was trying to find out how Indians and Eskimos came to live together in the community,” Schneider recalls of that first visit in the early 1970s. “People were very clear with me that they did not want to be put under a microscope but that they were interested in their history. I decided to try to learn the individual histories of the people who came and settled in the community. This launched me into collecting personal histories as a way to understand the community.”
Schneider was appointed to the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1980 where he created the University's Oral History Program the following year, a collection that has grown to hold more than 10,000 audio and video recordings relating to Alaska's rich history and heritage.
Schneider was a Fulbright scholar in South Africa in 1997 and received the Alaska Historical Society's Contribution to Alaska History Award in 2003 and the Usibelli Award for Service.
He is also the author or editor of numerous publications invaluable to the field of Oral History.
"Oral tradition is built on multiple telling and cumulative processing by listeners who hear the story in different ways. It is constructed both over time and each time a story is retold," he writes in ...So They Understand: Cultural Issues in Oral History.
"Loss is inevitable, but artful use of the past to speak to the present doesn't end when an elder dies. In fact, the way we generate personal narratives and the way we use them to create meaning for the moment is as important as their preservation for the future."
A humble man who shuns academic pretensions and is equally at ease in the lecture hall as he is with his recreational sled dog team, Schneider is considered one of the world's leading experts in his field and has given presentations on various aspects of Oral History everywhere from Fairbanks to Italy to South Africa.
One of the most innovative projects Schneider has helped create is Project Jukebox, an online trove of countless treasures of Alaskan history, captured through film, maps, photos, audio recordings and more. What began with a project on digitizing audio in the mid 1980s has evolved into an interactive program that truly brings history to life.
With a few clicks of the mouse one can see and hear information about topics such as Denali Mountaineering, Reindeer Herding, or the Dalton Highway. Click on Pioneer Aviators of Alaska to watch a biplane land on Lake Iliamna in the 1930s, or a Sikorsky Dragonfly helicopter navigating Anaktuvuk Pass in 1950. Taped interviews abound of legends such as Frank Whaley explaining the origins of the term “bush pilot” or Bob Reeve recalling countless adventures during the early years of Alaskan aviation.
The Alaska Humanities Forum continued its support of Project Jukebox with a $7,000 general grant for 2011.
“There have been lots of growing pains but the Web has given us yet another dramatic way to make the programs more accessible to a world wide audience,” Schneider explains. “We are always cautious and recognize that we are not preserving 'culture'. We are preserving the record of expression that is so vital to understanding cultures.”
Schneider says he is most proud of his work with graduate students and helping to broaden the concept of oral history. “I hope I have created more understanding of how people create meaning through stories and personal accounts,” he says.
“As we have seen our elders/founders/pioneers pass away, we are often thankful that Bill has been there to record their impressions and preserve them for students, scholars and the general public,” says Karen Perdue, President and CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association. Perdue has worked with Schneider on a project to collect oral and film histories on mental health services in Alaska and has high praise for his sensitivity and patience.
“Someday when we look back on Bill's body of work and contributions, we will say Alaska is a much better place because of the foresight Bill Schneider had to capture our thoughts in our words,” says Perdue. “Thanks, Bill, for blowing the doors off the library and bringing our stories to life.”
The 2010 Governor’s Awards for the Arts & Humanities represented a partnership of the Alaska State Council on the Arts, the Alaska Humanities Forum, the Fairbanks Arts Association and the Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation.
Tags: Governor's Awards, Governor's Awards for the Arts & Humanities
