CONTENT Introduction Old SSA Oral Histories New SSA Oral Histories The Columbia University Collection CMS Collection Material From Other Collections

INTRODUCTION

ORAL HISTORIES IN GENERAL:
The Social Security Administration has a strong commitment to oral history as an important part of its history program. Oral histories are a natural complement to our archival collections and to our historical research and scholarship. However, individual oral histories are memories of a single individual and cannot, by themselves, be the sole source of information about particular historical events. Individual oral histories are like pieces of a colorful mosiac--the full picture can only be seen when the perspectives of many individuals are combined into a meaningful whole.

It is also important to understand that these histories are the personal recollections and opinions of the individuals involved. They should in no way be interpreted as the official history of the federal government or the Social Security Administration. The oral histories are made available by SSA as a public service because oral histories are a recognized technique for adding "color and context" to more objective accounts. In this regard, we believe they have value as part of a comprehensive approach to historical research.

COPYRIGHT ISSUES:
It should also be noted that copyright law grants copyright of oral histories to the interviewees. Use of the material in an oral history is therefore governed by copyright restrictions. We will only post transcripts for which SSA has been given a grant of deed to the interview, or which have been released into the public domain. The fact that we have posted the transcript of an interview on this site DOES NOT necessarily mean that it has been released as a public domain document--the specific wording of the grant of deed is controlling. Therefore, no use (beyond limited quotation) should be made of the transcripts of these interviews without the express permission of the Social Security Administration. The SSA Historian's Office should be contacted to obtain the necessary permissions.

ORAL HISTORY AT SSA:
The current Oral History Project at SSA is in its early stages, having been launched in June 1995. The Project envisions an ongoing effort to document the history of Social Security, and especially of the Social Security Administration, by obtaining oral histories from a wide spectrum of individuals who have participated in the making of this history over the years. Our emphasis is on the administrative history of the Social Security program and the institutional history of SSA.

In addition to the new histories we are collecting, we are striving to take maximum advantage of histories in other collections. The base of our own collection is a set of 15 oral history interviews conducted by SSA in the late 1960s/early 1970s. This Guide refers to these interviews as the Old SSA Oral Histories. The new interviews collected under our current Project are therefore referred to as New SSA Oral Histories.

THE COLUMBIA COLLECTION:
The major supplement to the SSA-produced collections comes from the extensive library of the Oral History Center at Columbia University. Through a cooperative arrangement with Columbia, SSA is in the process of obtaining copies of the extensive Social Security and/or Medicare-related histories in the Columbia collection. Our goal is to serve as a second source for the Columbia collection. (We owe a special debt of thanks to the staff of Columbia's Oral History Research Office: Mr. Ronald Grele; Ms. Anne Gefell; Ms. Samatha D'Alo; Ms. Amanda Todd and Mr. David Skey for their generous support of this project.)

THE CMS ORAL HISTORY SERIES:
Professor Edward Berkowitz, of the History Department at George Washington Unversity, has conducted a series of oral history interviews for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This is an important collection that is available on the CMS website through a link provided here.

OTHER COLLECTIONS:
In addition, we have a small collection of additional interviews from the Presidential Libraries and from a few other sources. Interviews will be added to this collection as they become available to us.

In order to provide a resource of maximum value to scholars and researchers, SSA is gathering in one place what we expect will eventually be the largest single collection of Social Security related oral histories anywhere in the country.

All the interviews listed here are available for review at SSA Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. They are part of SSA's History Archives which are located in room G-36 Altmeyer Building at SSA Headquarters, 6401 Security Blvd., Baltimore, MD. We will post some of the interviews from our collection in electronic form on this History Page in the weeks and months ahead, although the bulk of the collection is presently only available in hardcopy format at SSA's History Archives.

DISCLAIMER:
These oral histories are expressions of the views, memories and opinions of the interviewee. They do not represent the policy, views or official history of the Social Security Administration.

Old SSA Oral Histories

New SSA Oral Histories

 Columbia University Oral Histories

 CMS Collection 

 Oral Histories from Other Collections