Oral Histories

At the heart of the SlackWater project are more than 400 oral history narratives in which the region's residents describe life in Southern Maryland throughout the 20th century. Collecting these oral history narratives dates to 1984, when Professor Andrea Hammer formed the Southern Maryland Documentation Project. In the nearly thirty years since, Prof. Hammer, other faculty, and hundreds of St. Mary's students have carefully recorded, transcribed, and archived these narratives. Since 2004, nearly all of these oral histories have been digitized and are available online (with some restrictions) through the St. Mary's College of Maryland Archives. 

Southern Maryland farmers, watermen, teachers, doctors, naval aviators, elected officials, planners, musicians, artists, and many, many more have generously shared their stories with us and now, we can share them with you.