The Dartmouth Class of '64 and the Vietnam War

The Dartmouth Class of '64 and the Vietnam War is a digital oral history project that builds and expands upon the previous work of both the Dartmouth Digital History Initiative and the Dartmouth Vietnam Project. This project offers two innovative ways for exploring the experiences of 18 members of the Dartmouth Class of 1964 during the Vietnam War era.

The 18 Interviews

Access the audio and transcripts of the interviews, alongside detailed indices that break the interviews into segments, like chapters in a book.

Click here to explore the 18 interviews.

The StoryMaps 

Interact with particular themes and data visualizations drawn from the testimonies. Click on the images below to explore the three StoryMaps.

Dartmouth in the Early 1960s

"Not Isolated, but Insular": Dartmouth in the Early 1960s 

Curated by Joanna Jou ‘26 and Chip Nguyen ‘25

Serving in Vietnam

"It was pretend before, but now it's real": Dartmouth Class of 1964 Experiences Serving in Vietnam

Curated by Kayla L. Entwistle ‘25 and Penelope L. Spurr ‘24

Changing Perspectives on the Vietnam War

"Are we doing the same kinds of things again?": Changing perspectives on the Vietnam War

Curated by Sanjana Raj ‘25

About the Project

The project began with a set of 18 previously-conducted interviews: 17 with members of the Class of ‘64, and 1 interview with the wife of a member of the Class. A team of six student Research Fellows first encoded the interviews using two schemas: (1) our own home-grown DDHI encoding schema for data visualization; and (2) the indexing schema developed by the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS). Then, drawing on data from both schemas, as well as in in-depth research using primary and secondary sources, students worked collaboratively to develop interactive stories and data visualizations with ArcGIS StoryMaps. 

This research project represents the first time that the capabilities of the DDHI and OHMS schemas have ever been brought together in a single digital archive. Together, these schemas have allowed us to envision and share new modes of exploring and learning from digital oral history archives.

Featured Narrators

  • Rand Beers
  • Ivars Bemberis
  • Timothy H. (Tim) Brooks
  • Dr. Donald C. Bross
  • Lee A. Chilcote
  • Justin A. Frank Jr.
  • Glen R. Kendall
  • David H. Kruger
  • James (Jim) Laughlin III
  • Peter E. Luitwieler
  • Francis C. (Bud) McGrath
  • Michael W. (Mike) Parker
  • William C. (Bill) Riggs
  • James M. (Jim) Rini
  • Hugh P. Savage
  • Neal Stanley
  • Susan E. (Sue) Tavela [Wife of John E. Tavela, ‘64]
  • Anthony J. (Tony) Thompson

Student Research Fellows

  • Kayla L. Entwistle ‘25
  • Joanna Jou ‘26
  • Nicolás A. Macri, ‘24
  • Chip Nguyen ‘25
  • Sanjana Raj ‘25
  • Penelope L. Spurr ‘24

Contact

For questions or comments about this project, or general inquiries about the Dartmouth Vietnam Project, please email dartmouth.vietnam.project@dartmouth.edu.