Education
Born in Chicago, Baum attended Whittier College, studying history under Professor Paul Smith, who once called Willa his second-best student ever, after Richard Nixon.
Born in Chicago, Baum attended Whittier College, studying history under Professor Paul Smith, who once called Willa his second-best student ever, after Richard Nixon.
During her graduate studies at University College Berkeley, Baum learned of Hubert Howe Bancroft"s interviews conducted in the 1860s and 1870s. Recognizing the historical value of these accounts, Baum and fellow graduate student Corinne Lathrop Gilb set up an Oral History program at University College Berkeley, which later became the Regional Oral History Office. Baum became the director in 1958, a position she held until her retirement in 2000.
Under Baum"s directorship, ROHO amassed over 1,600 oral histories, filled with first-hand accounts of the participants in significant historical events in California and the West.
These eyewitness accounts of history are on deposit at over 800 libraries worldwide, and stand as an invaluable resource to researchers worldwide. ROHO worked quickly to recognize and document historical movements.
Foreign example, ROHO’s Suffragists and Women in Politics series began in the early 1970s before most campuses had women's studies programs. Similarly, ROHO’s early documentation of the disability rights movement now provides primary research materials for the new disability studies program at University of California Berkeley.
Ongoing ROHO projects include oral histories of the wine industry, mining, the environmental movement, the Disability Rights Movement, the Free Speech movement, anthropology, University of California history, engineering, science, biotechnology, music, architecture, and the arts
ROHO’s largest projects document California government from the Earl Warren Era to the present. Upon her retirement, Baum was bestowed the Berkeley Citation for her service to University of California Berkeley, the President's Citation for her contributions to the University of California, and the Hubert Howe Bancroft Award for her leadership.