Personal Accounts/Oral History

Many diaries, letters and  other personal writings are available full text online or in paper.

To find them in HOLLIS search:  ("Chinese Americans" OR "Chinese United States") AND (diaries OR archives OR correspondence OR narratives). The Subject term Biography will retrieve a mixture of biographies and autobiographies.

Narratives is short for Personal narratives which refers to accounts of wars and of diseases.

In HOLLIS:

Subject contains: Epidemiologists
AND
Subject contains: sources OR narratives OR diaries OR correspondence OR interviews OR oral

Autobiographies usually bear the Subject term Biography, and so are not distinguished from biographies. The search Autobiographies OR Autobiography yields many autobiographies, but by no means all.

Personal writings and oral histories of minority persons can be found in the general personal wrings and oral history databases and other resources, and in a variety of minority-specific resources:  Black oral history   –   Black personal writings  –  Oral history and personal writings of other minorities. These resources can be searched for health-related keywords. Print sources may have indexes or may be available full text and/or searchable in HathiTrust or Internet Archive.


Personal accounts of diseases are usually called disease narratives and bear the Subject term (along with personal accounts of a war): Personal narratives. Resources for patient personal narratives      Resources for physician personal narratives.


Kellogg African American Health Care Project (Wayne State University Library. Oral History Collections) https://search.alexanderstreet.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/?url=https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cweb_collection%7C4226580?account_id=11311&usage_group_id=103838

African American Physicians: Biographical Dictionaries
Physicians' Writings. Or, books by doctors: Personal Writings

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Directions for this and analogous searches.

History of Health Services Research oral histories includes:

  • Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Oral History Biographies and Interviews
  • Social Security Administration Interviews|
  • And others

Oral history and transcript for an interview with Alvin Crawford, Perspectives of Change (Countway). Physician at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (1977-2006)