Britt Dahlberg

This interview was conducted with Britt Dahlberg as part of a reciprocal interview process, wherein Oral History Summer School (OHSS) students interviewed each other in pairs. Britt is an anthropologist working as the Director of Applied History at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, PA. She was also born and raised in Philadelphia, and was 36 years old at the time of the interview.

Initially, Dahlberg discusses what brought her to OHSS, and describes her experience working in a para-academic institution, including impressions on the politics of writing, career building, project development, and mentorship in her field. She opens by sharing about a potential book project coming from her PhD work, which leads her to reflect on how she learned to recognize, cultivate, and follow her instincts as a creative person and intellectual worker, not only in her present life, but in memories from college and Childhood. Topics that emerge in her narrative include: a Childhood love of plants and insects, experiences with creative determination, her perspective as a middle-class person attending a prestigious liberal arts school, her encounters with risk and authority as a young person, and how those experiences contributed to her present day creative process, work ethic, imagination, and sense of possibility.

This interview might be relevant for those interested in: early career women in academia in 2019 and the effect of class (especially middle-class upbringing) on academic, intellectual, and creative identity and process.