April 2, 2001

A conference on "Oral History and Americans at War: Documenting the Homefront and the Warfront in Recent America" will be held at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center on Saturday, April 14.

The conference, which runs from 8:30 a.m. through 1 p.m., with lunch to follow, is open to the public.

Peggy Bulger, director of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, will speak on "Preserving Veterans' Stories: The New Federal Initiative on Oral History."

She will be followed by Todd Moye, director, Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project of the National Park Service. The title of his presentation is "Diversity in Action," which will discuss the African American pilots who distinguished themselves during World War II.

Bulger and Moye will join Stephen Showers of the Dodd Center, Joan Craig of the Veterans Oral History Project at the Morse Institute Library, Natick, Mass.

Presenters also include Amy Beaulieu and Michelle Theis, who designed the website "Voices from the Second World War" while students in a course at the University's Center for Oral History. Now teachers at Wethersfield and Glastonbury High Schools, respectively , they use the website in their classes. The website, which contains interviews with members of the World War II generation, a timeline, and a glossary of terms, is on the website.

For information or to register, contact Martha McCormick at (860) 486-5245 or by e-mail: cohadm01@uconnvm.uconn.edu .

The conference is co-sponsored by the University's Center for Oral History, the Department of History, and the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, in conjunction with the New England Association of Oral History.