Jennifer Cramer
Director, T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Louisiana State University
- Baton Rouge LA
Jennifer Cramer oversees the processing, preservation, digitization, and public access of the Center’s 4,000 hours of audio recordings.
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Research Focus
Louisiana Oral History & Community-Engaged Documentation
Cramer’s work focuses on oral history and community‑engaged documentation of Louisiana’s culture, including civil rights, politics, environmental justice, and university history. As director of LSU’s T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, she leads interview methodology, preservation, and digital access initiatives—partnering with communities on projects such as Mossville History and Georgetown 272, and recognized with LSU’s Happy Award for service‑learning partnerships.
Education
University of Southern Mississippi
M.A.
Anthropology
Delta State University
B.A.
History
Media Appearances
Stories at LSU's oral history center contribute to Louisiana's history: 'It bridges generations'
The Advocate online
2025-03-01
"If we don't save these stories, they'll be lost," said Jennifer Cramer, the director of the T. Harry Williams Center. "And if it wasn't for these students and our partners who do this work, the stories would be lost forever."
Students Capture the Voices of Louisiana’s Veterans
A R T x F M radio
2024-12-02
According to Jen Cramer, director of the Williams Center and instructor of the course, “What’s amazing about this class is that you’ve got these…freshmen and sophomores doing original research…[T]hey’re creating this primary source that is going to be preserved locally and nationally,” Cramer said.
New HNOC exhibit tells the story of Black women fighting for the right to vote in New Orleans
WWNO 89.9 radio
2023-05-02
Eight years ago, LSU’s Dr. Helen Regis, Professor of Geography and Anthropology, and Jennifer Cramer, the director of the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, led their students through a Jazz Fest research project Now, Cramer joins us for more on what her students unveiled years ago. Plus, we listen back to some of the interviews her students conducted to hear memories of past Jazz Fests.
Articles
“First, Do No Harm”: Tread Carefully Where Oral History, Trauma, and Current Crises Intersect
The Oral History Review2020
The nature of oral history fieldwork changes when it is conducted during the course of an ongoing, long-term crisis like COVID-19. One must ask what the role of the oral history practitioner is, if any, in crisis events. In what follows, I discuss this and strategies for undertaking COVID-19 projects based on my experience as director for the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at Louisiana State University Libraries and on models for crisis-centered oral histories. I also discuss what project managers must take into consideration with regard to the sustainability of crisis oral history projects during our current period of increasing change and political unrest.
Event Appearances
Storms in the Archives: What Oral Histories and Special Collections Can Tell Us
2015 | Katrina & Rita - A Decade of Research & Response Baton Rouge, LA
Media
