Organizational History Case Study

SEC Historical Society: Oral History Project and Virtual Museum and Archive

In fulfilling its mission to document America’s regulatory heritage, the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society engaged History Associates to assist in its oral history project. Beginning in 2005 with a project focusing on the SEC’s women commissioners, History Associates executive vice president Dr. Kenneth D. Durr has, over the years, conducted nearly thirty interviews with former SEC staffers, state regulators, securities lawyers, and financial industry executives on behalf of the SEC Historical Society.

An Organizational History, told with Oral Histories

Interviews were wide-ranging, depending upon the society’s desires. Some offered a broad narrative recap of the subject’s career, while others were more narrowly focused on a specific set of issues or events in securities history.

For all interviews, History Associates provided the SEC Historical Society with an edited transcript and audio files (mp3 and wma), which are available to the public at the SEC virtual museum and archive.

Speaking about the SEC Women Commissioners Project, SEC Historical Society executive director Carla Rosati said, “The interviews are an unparalleled body of information.”

An Organizational History Virtual Archive

When the society decided to begin telling the Commission’s story on-line in a series of “virtual” history galleries, it again called on History Associates to create 431 Days: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Creation of the SEC, which features twenty-four virtual “rooms” organized under six major themes.

Curated by Dr. Durr and senior historian Dr. Adrian Kinnane, the Joseph P. Kennedy Gallery contains 202 original documents such as letters, memos, telegrams, diary excerpts, committee reports, congressional testimony, articles, and speeches by key figures in the early SEC story. The gallery also displays 61 photographs, cartoons, and other images, as well as 5 radio and movie news clips that help bring the story to life.