NOAA VoicesOral History Archives

Dive into the NOAA Voices Oral History Archive using the search bar below. Explore over 2700 firsthand accounts from communities, scientists and staff sharing their unique life experiences. Listen and discover how our lives intersect with and are shaped by our climate, weather, fisheries, oceans, and coasts.

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2700

Individual oral histories

Reflecting the diversity of people connected to our changing weather, climate, oceans and coasts

112

Partners & Contributors

From a range of NOAA offices and external organizations big and small around the country.

80K

Unique Visitors Per Year

Accessing audio recordings and transcripts of oral histories for research, education and scholarly purposes

150

New oral histories added each year

Continually broadening the perspectives and environmental context of the archive

Featured multimedia

A story map is a dynamic tool that combines oral histories, images, and spatial data to bring stories to life through interactive maps. Below, you can explore story maps created from materials in the NOAA Voices Oral History Archives, highlighting the connections between individual stories and their places.

Voices of the Fisheries: The Unique Lives of Gloucester Fishermen

Fishermen inspecting there catch aboard a boat with the sunset in the background

Voices from Florida's Changing Coral Reefs

An underwater diver swims alongside a coral reef teeming with marine creatures

A Way of Life: Fishing Sustains Small Communities in Bristol Bay, Alaska

Scenic aerial shot of a village on the water's edge

Twelve men and women who call Gloucester's working waterfront home were interviewed as part of the "Strengthening Community Resilience in America’s Oldest Seaport" project. These oral history recordings capture the invaluable life experiences of long-lived members of Gloucester's working waterfront, one of the oldest fishing communities in the United States.

Florida’s Coral Reef system is rapidly changing. Healthy coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth, with cultural and economic significance. They provide billions of dollars in food, jobs, recreational opportunities, and other goods and services to people around the world. This story map uses oral histories from scientists, divers, angles and others with first hand knowledge to illustrate those changes.

This web story explores these women's fishing experiences and how their connections to Bristol Bay persist in the face of change. During the summers of 2017 and 2018, researchers from NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center visited several communities in Bristol Bay to conduct oral history interviews with women who participate in the region's commercial and subsistence set net salmon fisheries.