StoryCorps, the national oral history project, opens its mobile recording booth in Boise Monday. For the next month, Idahoans will step into the Airstream trailer parked at Boise City Hall and record their stories.
What it's like to travel the country with StoryCorps...
For the past year, Leslee Dean has traveled the country. She's a StoryCorps mobile facilitator who helps people tell their stories. Some of these stories end up being heard every Friday morning during NPR's Morning Edition. All of the interviews are archived at the Library of Congress.
Dean says she enjoys recording people as they share their history. “A mother and a daughter just asking her mom about life growing up and being a mom and what that was like or a grandchild asking a grandparent the same kinds of questions or even a husband and wife talking about how they met or what they’ve been through,” says Dean.
She says the stories can be funny or sad. Sometimes the stories are tied to a place or historical event. “The Detroit riots, nuclear testing at Los Alamos in New Mexico, the Paiute Indian tribe," Dean recalls. "So those are just examples of the history that I’ve been able to learn about through recording these stories.”
Dean says everyone has a story to tell. Since the project began in 2003, StoryCorps has recorded more than 45,000 stories from around the country.
Join us Monday at 11:30 City Hall for the StoryCorps launch and get a tour of the mobile recording booth.
The recording booth in Boise will be open until July 6. Click here for more information about how to register to use the StoryCorps booth in Boise, and tweet us your experience with the #StoryCorpsBoise.
Copyright 2013 Boise State Public Radio
