Web site provides 1st-hand history interviews

BRADENTON — Imagine hearing Sgt. Sammy Davis talk about being the real Forrest Gump and winning a Medal of Honor.

Or how about listening to Drs. Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn talk about how they created the Internet?

“First-person accounts of history are impossible to come by unless you meet the person,” says Kathleen Addison, 17, of Bradenton.

So she and her 15-year-old sister Amy created History Heard — a Web site to preserve peoples’ stories and to make researching history projects for students more fun.

“Finding primary resources has often been difficult for my sister and I and our friends,” Kathleen said. “Our video interviews provide a firsthand look at history from the people who were there. History Heard is a way for students to understand history from the people who witnessed it themselves.”

The Addison sisters, who attend Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School, designed the free Web site as an indexed database of primary source video interviews for students.

“We just wanted to make history research easier for our generation, which grew up with the Internet,” Amy said. “We are digital natives. We don’t research history in libraries or textbooks as much anymore.”

So long as teachers approve, the videos on their site are intended to be used as sources for student history projects.

The concept sounds solid, says Bob Fletcher, a retired history teacher from Manatee County.

“When researching, you need sophisticated reliable sources,” the former Manatee High School teacher said.

Some students, he notes, use Internet sites including Wikipedia — a site that he says often has an abundance of misinformation.

“You always have to question the reliability of the source, so oral history is wonderful,” he said.

The girls brainstormed their idea in the fall of 2007. Then in August 2008, the first History Heard video interview was created and uploaded.

“It was my grandpa Ray Gonzalez,” Kathleen said. “He went to the University of Florida in the late 1940s and talked about his experiences there.”

That same month, the History Heard Web site went live.

In March, the sisters formed an advisory board for the site. It includes Paul Freedman, chairman of the history department at Yale University; Gabrielle Spiegel, chair of the history department at John Hopkins; and Patrick Whelan, a Saint Stephen’s history teacher.

So far, the sisters have interviewed 22 people, including some they went to see in Washington, D.C. They are choosing people who have made an impact in history. Amy’s favorite interview in Washington was Juanita Eaton, the widow of a World War II Tuskegee airman pilot.

“She talked about being in an African-American military family and wife of a military general,” Amy said.

Sgt. Davis is one upcoming interview Kathleen is looking forward to. Another is Bill Reinert, who invented the Toyota Prius. She wants to know his thoughts about how the vehicle has had such an impact on the transportation industry.

Because the girls want to continue building their library, their site allows students to add their own interviews.

Topics range from The Changing Role of Women and politics, to music and war.

“Our goal is to get videos from every city in America, from kids and people in every town,” said Kathleen.

Richard Milburn Academy Principal Krista Morton says the site is not only something she’d love to have her students use as a resource, she’d like to see her students create their own interviews for it.

“I’ve seen the Web site and I think it’s a very innovative concept for those young entrepreneurs,” she said. Morton plans to have her academy’s history teacher link up with the Addison sisters.

Morton commended the girls for creating the site because it wasn’t an assigned school project.

They created it during their spare time.