MOHAI Refreshes Its Oral History Transcriptions with Support from 4Culture

Jackie Lawson during oral history interview, 2017

Between 2015 and 2017, MOHAI partnered with The Black Heritage Society of Washington State (BHS) to complete eight oral histories as part of the 2017 exhibit Seattle on the Spot: The Photographs of Al Smith. The narrators of these interviews discussed the people and places of Seattle’s Central Area and Black community, both of which are documented in the work of photographer Al Smith. This collection includes a conversation with Jacqueline “Jackie” Lawson, one of the founders of BHS, the first Black certified genealogist in the Pacific Northwest, and co-founder of the Black Genealogy Research Group in Seattle.

Laura Lee Kusaka at her home during her interview, 2024

MOHAI’s 2024 Curator’s Fellow Polly Yorika explored the history behind the Boys’ and Girls’ Day dolls given to Bailey Gatzert Elementary School by Japanese American children and families before their incarceration during World War II. The dolls that were never retrieved are now part of MOHAI’s collections. As part of her project, Yorika interviewed Laura Lee Kusaka about her mother Massie Yutani Tomita, who was one of the children from Bailey Gatzert that was incarcerated.

Guy and Allison Demmert, 2015

Between 2015 and 2018, Jeffrey Kahrs conducted 21 oral histories with commercial fishermen in Seattle, a project also funded by 4Culture. In one of these interviews, Kahrs spoke with David “Guy” Demmert and his daughter Allison Demmert about their careers fishing along the West Coast and in Southeast Alaska. The Demmert family is Alaska Native from the Tsimshian and Tlingit tribes, and the oral history discusses their heritage, along with conversations about women skippering boats and fishing with family.

Generous support for this project was provided by 4Culture Collections Care Grant.