The Immigrant Experience: Oral History and Folklore Among Missourians from German and German-Speaking Groups. Revised.

Prepared as a guide to participants in a pilot Oral History Project designed to encourage the collection and preservation of personal reminiscences and histories of communities, families, and individuals as well as to gather knowledge of surviving customs, examples of folk art, folklore, and linguistic characteristics of German or other ethnic communities, "The Immigrant Experience" includes a discussion of specific projects suitable for students in foreign language or social studies programs. A guide to categories of verbal lore, varieties of ethnic social customs, and examples of folkloristic survival are included. German place names in Missouri are listed, and there is a selection of "Sprichwoerter," or proverbs, and examples of German tombstone inscriptions. A brief history of "Germans in Missouri" and a selected bibliography offer a framework in which the student collector can work and suggest regions of the state in which ethnic research can be conducted. There are sample registration forms for participants and biographical data questionnaires for contributors as well as guidelines for conducting interviews to gather data. (Author)