Oral History Project

Welcome to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard/IC Norcom Oral History Project. Commenced in 2021, and designed by The Friends, the City Museums Department and the TV Production class at IC Norcom High School, the Oral History Project is an effort to tell many histories but all with two common themes -- life working at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and living in Portsmouth.

This is a history of being a Shipyarder at America's Shipyard while at the same time being a history of the history of Portsmouth as seen through the eyes of our Shipyarders. In some cases, Interviews were done with multi-generational families -- following mother-, father-, son-, daughter-, brother- and sister-Shipyarders through their different respective careers at the Shipyard. Some stories also include those of now deceased family members. Indeed, as a collection, the Oral History Project contains stories of Shipyard families tracing their roots in the Shipyard as far back as the 1800s.

Each year, a dedicated team from The Friends get together with Jasmine Painter, the TV Production class teacher, and organize the year's Project. The Project includes four weeks of specialized instruction on what an oral history is and how to research and conduct an oral history interview -- including a two-week Workshop funded by The Friends and taught by oral history experts associated with the Smithsonian Museum and National Geographic.

Unless indicated otherwise below as part of the credits for a particular Oral History Project interview, all interviews are researched and conducted by the students. The Friends are extremely proud of this collaboration and of the work done by our very own Norcom students.

Ultimately, The Friends hope to create an interactive digital Exhibit from these interviews for inclusion in the Shipyard Museum. The Friends have also approached other potential outlets through which to share the Project.

At present, the Interviews featured on this page are the rough full-length interviews from the 2021-2022 Project-year. We hope to have all of our 18 Interviews through 2025 up on this page by the end of Summer 2025 and to include edited versions focusing on different but common themes -- thus allowing you to pick topics within each Interview. Stay tuned!

Multi-Generational Shipyard Families

The following Interviews were all conducted by IC Norcom students and cover the Shipyard and Portsmouth lives of multi-generational families. A transcript link for each Interview is available under each Interview. We are still working through allowing you to re-start a video, however, in the interim a video may be restarted by refreshing the page. We apologize for any inconvenience.