Libraries’ Gwynn Thayer to teach oral history

The NC State History Department is pleased to announce that Gwynn Thayer, Associate Head and Chief Curator of the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) and Faculty Affiliate in the History Department, will teach HI 533: Theory and Practice of Oral History in spring 2023. The course will allow students to integrate curation with oral histories in support of SCRC growth. Thayer will use her perspective as both a curator and scholar to explore ways to use oral histories to build collections and supplement primary source research. 

Thayer first studied oral history while earning her Ph.D. in public history at Middle Tennessee State University and working full-time as an archivist at the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville, TN. In addition to her graduate program’s oral history coursework, she enrolled in oral history workshops with leading experts Linda Shopes and Stephen Sloan. Thayer’s first project was with the Tennessee Holocaust Commission where she helped to integrate artifacts and metadata description with (previously recorded) oral histories for the commission’s Living On project.

Later, she conducted oral histories for her research and dissertation work on the history of greyhound racing in support of her 2013 book Going to the Dogs: Greyhound Racing, Animal Activism, and American Popular Culture, which won the 2014 North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) award for best monograph. She interviewed numerous people involved in greyhound racing and subsequently donated some of the interviews to various repositories. A Keith Dillon oral history went to the Kansas Historical Society (2009), and a Jim Frey oral history went to the Baylor University Libraries (2011). Other interviews were used for dissertation and book purposes and were integral to the research process. 

While serving as curator at the SCRC, Thayer has conducted a number of oral histories with scholars and other NC State luminaries, including Chuck Flink, William Flournoy, Phil Freelon, and Nora Lynn Finch. She also helps to manage the Computer Simulation Oral History Archives, also part of the SCRC. Her areas of personal research interest include animal protection, architecture and design, and sports history.

This story originally appeared on the History Department news site and has been edited.