Our mission is to gather, preserve, and promote living histories of individuals from all walks of life. Connecting the classroom with the community, using history to inform civic engagement, and putting students in dialogue with elders are among SPOHP’s greatest strengths.
“From participating in interviews, to engaging with the collection, to attending SPOHP’s events, the public is the lifeforce behind SPOHP’s past, present, and future.” -Dr. Paul Ortiz
Our founder, Dr. Samuel Proctor, first established these traditions of experiential learning which Professor Julian Pleasants, Sam’s successor, carried forward. Today, we support oral history dissertation research in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and other parts of the world. We are offering courses at UF and we are working collaboratively with educational experts to make narratives of World War II veterans, Puerto Rican workers, and Holocaust survivors accessible to K-12 students in classrooms across the country. Your support makes all this possible. I hope that you will join me in helping us celebrate the work of our students, staff, and volunteers by making a tax-deductible donation to help sustain the work of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.