At its heart, oral history is storytelling, and in this digital age it might seem an old-school way to get information. But in many instances, it’s the only way to capture historical details before an aging population forgets it or passes without sharing their experiences.
Adrienne Cain Darough, assistant director for Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History for nine years, is working hard to make sure that priceless oral histories are preserved and, yes, digitized to keep pace with technology. WACOAN writer Susan Bean Aycock sat down with her recently to talk about the continued relevance of family and community history, and the importance of recording the memories of those who lived it.
Tell me about your family and where you grew up.
I was raised on the east side of Fort Worth and graduated from Eastern Hills High School. My parents are Bruce and Del Cain, and I have two older sisters, Shanekia and Trinia, who are seven and 11 years older. We have a very tight-knit family so when we’re together, it’s a good time. My immediate family here in Waco is my husband, Michael Darough. We met while working at Baylor and got married in 2023.
Oral history is all about storytelling — were there any big storytellers in your family?
There was always storytelling when my family got together, but I didn’t at that time know it as oral history. My dad would tell stories about when he was a kid hunting in the woods, or my mom about fishing with my granny. Both of my parents came from families of eight, so there were a lot of people telling stories at family occasions.
How did you become interested in history?
Growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut, but AP physics and calculus nixed that. I’d always been interested in history, learning the stories behind the stories, about the people who made things happen and who changed things.
I was always fascinated with museums and libraries and credit my eldest sister Trinia for that. She started college at TCU when she was 16, so I was about 5 when she would take me to campus with her. She also often took me on field trips to the Kimbell [Art Museum] and the Museum of Science and History in Fort Worth. My mom took me to the public library, where I would check out ‘Goosebumps’ or astronomy books and just nerd out and let my imagination run.
You went to Prairie View A&M University. What did you plan to study?
I originally declared civil engineering as a major, but I realized that that wasn’t something I wanted to do, so I was ‘undecided’ for a semester or two. I’d always loved English and history, so I double-majored in those. That’s where I really turned up history a notch, going to an HBCU [Historically Black College and University].
Prairie View really changed the lens I was learning through. I had already noticed there were people missing from the big stories — history has traditionally been told from a narrow lens that’s very male and very white. It was like ‘OK, but they weren’t the only people, right?’ I wanted to learn about the whole history of this country — the good, the bad and the ugly — and how that played into some voices being highlighted in history while others were silenced.
What did you do with your brand-new college degree?
I know Millennials like me get a bad rap, but I think we were fed a lot of false promises, like a college degree will guarantee jobs lining up for you. I had graduated with honors, and I just knew employers were going to be knocking down my door. That’s not what happened.
So, I did what every recent graduate with no job prospects does: I enrolled in graduate school! I moved back home to Fort Worth and commuted to UNT in Denton to earn my MLS [Master of Library Science] degree.
So, the very specific niche of oral history is now your career. How did that come about?
While I was getting my master’s, I was working full time in the collections department of a luxury vehicle finance company, but I needed a practicum to complete my degree. Most internships were unpaid, and I was hesitant to leave a steady paycheck and benefits.
But I came across an opportunity with the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston for a paid internship working towards digitalizing their materials from the shuttle program, mostly archival work. There were a lot of recordings of astronauts and flight directors that I would listen to, and I really got a taste of oral history. It was funny because I’d come full circle from wanting to be an astronaut to listening to oral history by astronauts while working at NASA!
Then I got a job at the Houston Public Library as an entry-level librarian and began working with their special collection of archives. I served as the Oral History and Media Librarian for the Houston Metropolitan Research Center [now the Houston History Research Center] and as Oral History Librarian for the African American Library at the Gregory School [now the African American History Research Center].
I’m a person of faith, so I always look at how God works. The workshop for oral history that I took to learn is the same one I now teach at Baylor. That was another thing that came full circle.
What does your job encompass as the assistant director of the Institute of Oral History?
A big part of what I do is training: students, faculty, community members or those who are just interested in oral history. I also help run the Institute, promoting and running our grant program here.
The Institute gives out three grants. Two are annual: a Faculty Research Fellowship for Baylor faculty and the Charlton Oral History Grant for external scholars. The Community Oral History Grant is a biennial grant available to Texas nonprofits interested in preserving the history of their communities. These grants allow us to give back while also expanding our collections to include subjects from experts across the campus, state and world.
What are some of the uses that people use the Institute’s resources for?
There are so many applications for oral history. A student writing a research paper may need primary sources for a subject. We have faculty and external researchers who need to dive deeper into a particular topic. And then there are people who use the Institute for leisurely listening just to hear people tell the old stories.
Our digitalized oral histories have written transcripts; to date our collection has about 7,800 oral histories and more than 4,500 of those are online. We’re working really hard to get the rest digitalized, because we’re always conducting and taking in interviews, so there’s a constant flow of information coming in.
Taking oral history is a slow process, while our digital age gets faster and faster. How do you keep up?
One of the things that oral historians are always concerned with is how to keep pace with technology. Our culture has platforms that are really oral history ‘adjacent.’ Someone might say, ‘I’m gonna do this oral history with my grandma on TikTok’ and it’s a 15-minute interview.
But oral history is long-form, and technology in many ways has shortened our attention spans. Sometimes people think that with AI and automatic transcription, I can interview you today and have a fully-edited transcript tomorrow. No, there’s work and steps that take time. Taking someone’s oral history isn’t a one-and-done thing. I often say, ‘If you do an interview that’s only 30 minutes, I’m gonna ask you to go back and ask some more questions.’
But doesn’t AI (artificial intelligence) make documenting history easier now?
AI can be a great tool if used responsibly, but it makes mistakes because it offers only what’s fed into it. It’s the responsibility of the user to be able to vet the information and the resources it may cite.
AI has its place and benefits, but it’s not supposed to be the be-all and end-all of your product. We use AI [at the Institute for Oral History] in the form of automated transcription. However, we also have at least three sets of human eyes to edit and review material; AI is just a tool. If we were to rely entirely on AI, we’d have a lot of unintentional misinformation.
You’ve mentioned the terms ‘methodology’ and ‘best practices.’ What do those mean in the context of oral history?
What sets oral history apart from other forms of interviewing is that it relies heavily on ethics. We want to make sure that the people we’re interviewing, the narrators, are comfortable and feel protected by the process. We make sure the person provides informed consent — that’s a big thing.
Oral history can be a very vulnerable experience. It may be the first time someone’s been asked to talk about their life experiences. Sometimes that touches on great memories. But some life experiences may be harder to bring forth and talk about.
Some people may have difficulty recalling certain details in the moment or state a wrong name or place. So, we do allow narrators to review their transcripts. Meanwhile, we’ve conducted research on our end to help place their experiences and stories into the greater historical context.
You’re also a clinical associate professor at BU. What do you do in that role?
My job involves a lot of research, which for the most part supports interviews I conduct or projects I’m working on. Two specific projects have included using oral history to document alumni experiences. I’ve worked with Baylor alumni as a part of our mission to document our history from all prospectives, and I’ve also helped document the history of the alumni of Bishop College, which was an HBCU but no longer exists.
I did a lot of research for a book I co-authored with my office colleagues titled ‘Oral History at a Distance’ [Routledge Press, 2024]. It came from a workshop we conducted in 2020 during Covid lockdown where we provided methodology and best practices from oral historians on how to conduct oral history interviews remotely. The book is available open access, so anyone can download it.
Although ‘professor’ is in my title, I’m not required to teach, but for fun I’ve taught a New Student Experience course for incoming freshmen acclimating to college. I also guest-lecture often for classes here at Baylor and at other colleges and universities.
Tell me more about the Institute’s workshops and presentations.
We teach ‘Getting Started with Oral History’ twice a year. We also do an advanced oral history workshop once a year, where we’ll do a deep dive into a particular topic and discuss advanced interviewing. Our advanced workshop is July 16 [time TBA] and will discuss AI and oral history.
Most of our workshops are for adult groups, but sometimes we work with youth. Last summer we worked with a group in Bell County called IMPAC [Intelligent Minds Proving and Applying Commitment] Outreach, for youth to explore civic and community responsibility. We had them do an oral history interview with a family member to get the concept of living history and what you can learn from it. It was phenomenal.
Your resume lists a boatload of organizations you’re active in. Tell me about that.
Well, I’m a facilitator for My Sister, Myself, a support group for Black female students at BU. In a PWI [predominantly white institution], sometimes finding community with people who look like you can be a challenge. So, it’s a space to fellowship with each other and talk about everything from politics to pop culture.
I’m a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. [AKA], the first Black sorority for college women, founded in 1908. I was initiated in 2005 at Prairie View and celebrate 20 years of membership this fall. I belong to the Waco chapter, Delta Alpha Omega, which has been serving the Waco community for over 75 years.
I’m the graduate advisor for the AKA chapter at Baylor, Pi Mu, and was recognized as Graduate Advisor of the Year at our annual regional conference. The chapter received several awards at Baylor’s Excellence in Student Leadership award ceremony in May; they’re here on my desk and I’m really proud of them. I was named Advisor of the Year; the group was named Student Organization of the Year and also received the Community Service Award.
I’m the past president of Baylor’s Black Faculty and Staff Association, which was established in 2018 and was the first ERG [Employee Resource Group] established at Baylor. I also serve on the board of Historic Waco.
Tell me about the Waco Black History Walk you helped start in 2022.
If you’re reading this and haven’t heard of the Waco History app, put this down, pick up your phone and download it! It was created by Dr. Stephen Sloan, Director of the Institute for Oral History and a BU history professor, who wanted an innovating and engaging way to get Waco history out. The app is a partnership between IOH and the Texas Collection, which provides photographs, documents and research materials while the Institute provides clips of oral history.
One day while looking at different stories on the app, I was like, ‘OK, this is really great, but how do we make it more of a community thing?’ We’re always wanting to showcase what we have and promote community engagement with history. So, Stephen and I sat down and mapped out a walkable radius of historical places in Waco that relate to Black leaders and history, and it became the Black History Walk.
What are some of the spaces that the Black History Walks includes?
With Black history, as with all history, there are spaces that we pass by all the time and don’t know the history or significance of.
Take the Dr. Mae Jackson Development Center — she was the first Black mayor of Waco. Katy Park at the Silos was where the Negro Baseball Leagues played. At Baylor, Dr. Vivienne Malone-Mayes was the first Black professor, even though she was denied admission as a student due to segregation.
The former Paul Quinn campus is important, though the college moved to Dallas in 1990 to the old Bishop College location. But it was a major hub of East Waco where a Black middle-class community thrived.
I’m working with my colleague Sylvia Hernandez at the Texas Collection in planning a walk for Hispanic Heritage Month this fall. I would love to eventually have a walk showcasing all the diverse groups in Waco. It’s not just Hispanic history or Black history or any other history; it’s Waco history.
Why is oral history so important to the Black community?
Many stories weren’t written down for a lot of reasons. Maybe historically it wasn’t safe to write them down, or a person wasn’t literate. Oral tradition is how stories are passed down from generation to generation, and telling those stories allows people to know where they came from.
With oral history, I think there’s also the responsibility of looking into why things were a certain way. When Granddad told stories about walking 10 miles to school in the snow, maybe it was because there was no busing system for him. As I become older, especially in this profession, it’s like, ‘OK, let’s look at the reasons behind the stories.’
It’s obvious you’re passionate about community service. What do you do for fun, just for you?
I’m really passionate about serving others and mentoring, yes. But I also love to travel.
My husband is a photographer, so it’s nice to go somewhere and learn about the history, culture and food — and see the amazing shots he takes. Around Waco, we love to check out new restaurants and I enjoy trying new hobby shops like Fuzz Lab Waco and Hammer & Stain.
Where have you traveled and where else is on your list?
I’m blessed to be able to travel for work. We have a partnership with the United Arab Emirates National Library and Archives, and I went to Abu Dhabi last fall. I’ve been able to present my research and represent my office at conferences nationally and internationally; over Thanksgiving break I presented at a conference in Finland.
By the time this issue comes out, we’ll be in Cartagena, Colombia. We wanted to take a trip celebrating both of us turning 40 this year, and it just happens to align with our anniversary. We went to Belize on our honeymoon. I love Mexico. My favorite trip may have been to Cuba.
I’d love to see Iceland. And I would theoretically love to take Drake’s Passage to Antarctica for some weird reason, but I know that I wouldn’t survive the waves. So that’s a trip I know I’m never going to really do.
Do you have a personal creed that you live by?
Even as a teenager, probably even younger, I always said that I wanted to have a positive impact on people. Treat people how you want to be treated, with respect and kindness. You never know what someone is going through, what they’ve experienced. We have enough going on in the world that can be negative and depressing, so just treat people with kindness.
Why is your job so important to you?
I want to continue to provide a space for people to know that their stories and experiences matter, and that they’re important.
To learn more about the Institute for Oral History or oral history in general, visit library.web.baylor.edu/oralhistory or email Adrienne_Cain@baylor.edu. The Texas Oral History Association’s annual conference will be held at BU this September; visit baylor.edu/toha for more information.
