A typical oral history interview recording set up.
The Arlington Historical Society launched a new oral history initiative, Arlington Stories, during HistoryFest on May 9, 2026. Renee Braden and Asher Berwick conducted several interviews with both longtime Arlingtonians and newer members of our community. The initiative digitally captured thoughtful, poignant reflections on past experiences and light, funny moments of everyday life in Arlington. It was a perfect day to introduce and explain the program to HistoryFest attendees and, of course, to get feedback and ideas for future interviews.
AHS President Peter Vaselopulos and board members Sean Denniston and Marty Suydam began planning for the program in 2025. Sean and Marty completed an excellent training program offered by the Alexandria Oral History Center last year and began planning for several interview projects. AHS has invested in its own recording equipment and has begun a training program for volunteer interviewers. Arlington Stories’ first projects include HistoryFest VA250 (collecting reflections and narratives of attendees), Crystal City Underground (collecting interviews with urban planners, vendors, and shoppers), Shirlington (collecting stories about the redevelopment of the Village of Shirlington), and Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington (collecting family information from the descendants of enslaved African Americans.
Oral history is more than just conducting interviews. Rather, it is a process that captures the lived experiences, memories, and perspectives of people in their own words. These stories are valuable because they capture information about events that may not be in written records or official histories, and make history feel ‘alive’ and tangible. AHS is partnering with George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media to create a digital repository to archive the recordings, transcripts, and related materials and serve as a resource for researchers and the public.
