George Babbitt Oral Histories

Want to know about Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff's Wild West heritage, and early pioneers struggles in northern Arizona? Listen to interviews with Stanley Sykes, Mamie Fleming, and others in the George Babbitt Collection.

George Babbitt Jr. and Ruth Babbitt by the side of Route 66, 1954.


Originally recorded as wire sound recordings, George Babbitt's oral history interviews now run the gamut of audio technology. Special Collections and KNAU radio staff members transfered them to audio cassette and later to digital audio files. Moreover, the archives continues to maintain oral histories and films in at least 19 different formats: Wire Recording, 33 1/3 rpm Record, Reel to Reel Audio, 16mm Film, 8mm Film, Beta Cam, Beta Max, U-matic, Hi-8 (video), VHS, Floppy Disks, Typed Transcript, DAT (audio), Audio Cassette, Micro Cassette, CD, MiniDV, DVD, Hard Drive, and Portable Hard Drive. Preservation, therefore, involves safeguarding original content, as well as vintage technology.

"In 1894, the year I was born, they called me the 'hard times baby,' because we had a terrible drought, and a national depression during Cleveland's administration, and the sheepmen and the other men in business had a terrible time. They had no sale for wool, and they hadn't any rain, their sheep died, and they just had awful times. And my father really lost an awful lot of sheep."

� Mamie Fleming, interviewed by George Babbitt, March 7, 1953, George Babbitt Collection, NAU.OH.57.36, Cline Library Special Collections and Archives, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona.


Next Back