BETHEL -– Neal Hitch isn’t sure what surprises him more, that he’s still hearing amazing oral histories, over and over, from people who attended the 1969 Woodstock Festival – or that he hasn’t grown tired of hearing yet another Woodstock story.  

Hitch will tell you it’s both. And he is quick to add that it’s been a privilege to hear what people are willing to share. 

Since the beginning of the oral history initiative in 2020, The Museum at Bethel Woods has been committed to collecting and preserving stories from the people who know Woodstock best. In 2022, the Museum was awarded a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to take this initiative to the next level, to pay for curators and community connectors to travel the country and record their Woodstock tales.  

Right now, Hitch and Julia Fell, Curator of Exhibits, are just collecting the data. Every hour of video collected means 12 hours of staff time to process the data. In under three years, the Museum went from having just 66 oral history interviews in its collection to over 500. The overall goal is to collect 4,500 stories from people who attended the festival. That’s still less than 1 percent of the nearly half a million who traveled to Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel for three days of peace and music.

Hitch, the Museum’s Senior Curator, sits for a virtual interview in a back corner, surrounded by lights and a camera, ready for the next story. He admits to being blown away by the amount of press across the country the oral history project has received. He says there seems to be a sense of urgency, that people understand that the time is slipping away. 

Hitch feels some obligation to make sure no Woodstock story goes untold. 

What is driving people to share?

A lot of people had an experience at Woodstock that was defining and it set a course or direction in their life, and they want that story and memory preserved. Yes, many people have been telling that party story on the internet. What we are recording are not the party stories. There’s some pretty raw, emotional, honest stories about Woodstock. Not all positive. I’ll say, `When you close your eyes, what’s your vivid memory’ and usually that vivid memory is not the story they’ve been telling. It’s a real human experience that isn’t something you would share with someone.

What is the process for getting the interviews?

What’s happened in 2024 is our numbers have just been ridiculous. When we went up to Boston in March, we anticipated a two-day popup doing 16 people and that would have been incredibly successful. We got contacted by over 200 people. In 2023 we did 301 interviews which my staff would say is too many. This year we’re at 450, that was a month ago.

They aren’t quick interviews.

We do long-form oral history so it’s not a 15-minute Woodstock story. It’s how Woodstock impacted a life. For many people, the Woodstock experience was a shared experience with friends. You hear stories about guys in combat who then have this relationship for the rest of their lives because no one else shares that experience they had. A lot of the Woodstock stories that we’ve collected kind of have that theme.  

Are you surprised those three days still have a hold on folks nearly 60 years later?

As a historian, I know Woodstock was miserable. I know the rain was awful. The mud was nasty, people didn’t have stuff to eat. You know that water is not readily available. I can’t imagine anything worse than sleeping outside in the mud after it rains at 4 in the morning. But no one remembers being wet, being hungry. No one remembers being miserable. Their memory is that everyone was sharing everything that they had. That people were caring for one another. That’s the memory that sticks with people. They had this experience of peace that was so powerful at the time. That’s what they talk about.

Do you worry the Woodstock film taints the memory?

For a long time, we asked, ‘Who’s your favorite band or do you remember a favorite act?’ Too often the bands and acts people remember are the best scenes in the movie. People remember Santana. It’s Saturday afternoon, Santana comes on and there’s this anticipation. It’s probably the time with the most people there. Because they’re filmed during the day they get the prime location in the movie. Great song. I think that’s also part of the Woodstock haze. We don’t ask that question anymore.

How do you deal with that “haze?”

We are collecting people’s memories. We’d never tell someone they’re wrong or point out that that band did not play on Saturday. You are recording someone’s story and their memory and that doesn’t mean their memory is true. You have to come at the material with that understanding. You are collecting someone’s memory that isn’t always correct.

Please see part 2 of this series in Tuesday’s edition for more answers from Senior Curator Neal Hitch.