The National Hellenic Museum began formally collecting oral history interviews in 2003, with a few interviews collected informally as early as the 1990s. The interviews took place at the National Hellenic Museum, in the homes of narrators, and occasionally at local conferences or gatherings within the Greek American community. The bulk of the interviews are with Chicago residents but the museum has also done collecting trips to New York, Indiana, Michigan, Utah, Colorado, and Florida. The interviews were done by staff members or volunteers on behalf of the National Hellenic Museum. This collection continues to grow as new interviews are collected every year. Narrators are primarily self-selected though efforts to recruit narrators varied depending on available staff and resources. 

This collection contains hundreds of interviews recorded as part of the National Hellenic Museum Oral History Project. The narrators in this collection discuss a wide variety topics including immigration to the United States, Greek Orthodoxy and churches, cultural and religious traditions, children and family life, food, marriage, Greek school and education, careers, participation in Greek organizations, politics, war, and family businesses.

This collection is arranged by object IDs which were assigned in 2019 based on alphabetical order by narrator last name. Interviews collected past 2019 will be numbered and cataloged based on the date of the interview.

Full length interviews and transcripts for these interviews are available onsite at the National Hellenic Museum or by request. Please contact nhmcollections@hellenicmuseum.org with access requests.

The majority of these interviews are in the English language and often include Greek words and phrases. A few interviews in this collection are entirely in Greek.

These interviews were collected by staff and volunteers of the National Hellenic Museum.