Welcome to the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project

The GVSU Veterans History Project was established in 2006 to collect, record and archive oral history interviews and other materials relating to the experiences of military veterans of all eras, as well as of civilians and foreign nationals with stories relating to the American experience in wartime.  We work in partnership with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project, and are one of a small number of archiving partners across the country. As an archiving partner, we post our interview videos and other materials on a website that is part of the Special Collections of the GVSU Library.

Each video in our archive is accompanied by a detailed outline or complete verbatim transcript of the interview. Current library policy is to require complete transcripts for all new interviews being added to the collection. Since we do not have the financial or manpower resources to do this work quickly, we have also set up a YouTube channel where we post more recent interviews. We are working on providing summaries of the videos on our YouTube channel and grouping them into playlists for the benefit of people interested in specific topics.

View interviews in our archive                

View interviews on our YouTube channel

In addition to conducting and archiving oral history interviews, the Project also produces documentary films and public access cable television programs, develops book projects, and gives live presentations around West Michigan and across the country. Dr. James Smither of the GVSU History Department serves as Project Director, and works with a team of student interns and research assistants, along with community partners and volunteers.