Allan Nevins, a historian and journalist, founded the Oral History Research Office (OHRO) in 1948. His work helped establish oral history as an international discipline. Today, the Oral History Archives at Columbia (OHAC)—the name adopted in 2018—houses thousands of interviews, making it one of the largest oral‑history collections in the United States.

When the collections were first assembled, they were deliberately broad in scope, encompassing far more than a single region or historical theme. Early biographical interviews concentrated on prominent political and governmental figures—the “great men” of history. Over the years, however, the biographical series expanded to include notable individuals of the times from philanthropy, business, radio, publishing, filmmaking, medicine, science, public health, law, the military, architecture, and the arts.

During the 1950s and 1960s, OHRO undertook several large‑scale oral‑history projects. These included the Radio Pioneers project (1950‑1974), the Chinese Republican Oral History (1958‑1976), the Popular Arts series (1958‑1960), the Occupation of Japan study (1960‑1961), the Eisenhower Administration project (1962‑1972), the Psychoanalytic Movement documentation (1963‑1982), and the Nobel Laureates on Scientific Research initiative (1964).

Starting in the 1980s, OHRO broadened its collecting strategy to document activist histories of the New Left, civil‑rights and peace movements, as well as community histories. With a growing awareness of the social construction of memory, the biographical interviews began to illuminate social, political, and cultural history through the lens of individual life stories.

In the early 2000s, Columbia’s Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR) joined the Incite program, focusing on leadership in oral history methodology and on training the next generation of scholars through its master’s degree program. Recent CCOHR‑initiated oral‑history projects are now accessible in the Rare Book & Manuscript reading rooms and on the Incite website.

The 2018 renaming to the Oral History Archives at Columbia highlighted the archive’s core mission: preserving and providing access to oral history materials. After decades of acquisition and under‑processing, OHAC is consolidating its holdings, adhering to established oral‑history methods and best practices, and prioritizing the release of newly digitized recordings within the Digital Libraries Collection.

Current collecting is limited, requiring audio files, copy‑edited transcripts, and signed narrator agreements that meet specific criteria.