The Women of El Toro is a #CalHumanities funded project that Dan Sutko and I are working on in collaboration with the Center for Oral and Public History (COPH) at Cal State Fullerton this year. For the project we are developing a site-specific iOS app that augments The Great Park in Irvine, CA with oral histories told by female marines and wives of Marines who were stationed at El Toro in the 1940s (which happens to be on the very same ground as The Great Park). The interviews with these amazing women were created by COPH during the transition between the military base and the new park circa 2007 and have since been stored in an archive on campus at CSUF. Our app brings the important cultural history and community stories that COPH archived to the public while they might be experiencing a balloon ride, farmer’s market, children’s play area, soccer game, or even more banal infrastructure (the bathroom, the parking lot, or even just looking at the sky) in the Great Park.
The app should be available from the Apple Store this summer. For now, you can read more about the project in our interview with Cal Humanities.