Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews

United States. Work Projects AdministrationProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.3
Word count
508K words
Chapters
51

Tags

English Originals Oral HistoryDocumentary Literature Historical ReappraisalPortrait GallerySouthern PastFate and FortuneHumanistic CareCivic AwarenessDaily ReflectionsSocial CritiqueDocumentary Narrative

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From InterviewsAuthor: United States. Work Projects Administration,Language: English, Class: E300: History: America: Revolution to the Civil War (1783-1861), Release Date: Feb 23, 2011

Editor's review

This book is a collection of oral histories of African American slavery gathered in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration—first-hand folk memory. Its value lies not in literary polish but in letting people once denied the chance to write leave their own record of daily life: work, food, religion, family separation, and post-war circumstances. Readers will meet dialect transcriptions and the limits of memory and age, but precisely for that reason it reminds us to treat oral history as evidence to be weighed, not as fiction. It suits supplementary reading in American history, African American studies, and oral history methods, as well as general readers curious about the everyday history of slavery. Read with questions in mind: how interviewers asked, how interviewees chose to tell, which themes recur. The free electronic edition is easy to search and compare, but note the edition details; the original language is English.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the introduction or editor's note first to understand the interview background and collection method, then move into individual accounts.
  2. Read by theme—work, religion, family, post-war life—for easier comparison across accounts.
  3. Don't get stuck on every dialect spelling; grasp the general sense first, then return to key details.
  4. Read alongside general histories of American slavery, distinguishing interviewees' memories from historical verification.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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  6. 6
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  11. 11
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  19. 19
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  21. 21
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  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51

FAQ

Are these accounts fiction or genuine historical records? They are interview records organized by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s—oral history, not fiction. Interviewees recount personal experience or heard memories, so they contain both precious first-hand detail and limits such as memory lapses and interviewers' leading questions; read them as evidence to be weighed.
Why is there so much dialect spelling in the text? Collectors tried to preserve interviewees' spoken pronunciation and expression, hence dialect transcription. This retains the texture of voice but makes reading harder and may reflect the recorder's own handling. Grasp the meaning first; don't map every word to standard English.
Can I read it without a background in American history? Yes, but it helps to know the basic timeline of American slavery and the background of the Civil War; otherwise names, places, and institutional terms will interrupt you. If you only want the personal accounts, start with short ones rather than reading straight through.
What should I watch for when reading the electronic edition? This is a free public-domain e-book in English. Layout and notes vary by platform; when citing, check the edition details and page positions. Use search to find theme words first, then read the surrounding context.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

United States. Work Projects Administration Author

The United States Work Projects Administration was a federal public works agency established in the United States in the 1930s, and its Federal Writers' Project organized the collection, compilation, and publication of a large body of oral history materials. The library holds 34 of its works, most of them centered on African American slave narratives; the representative Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States series was assembled from interviews with formerly enslaved people and their descendants. These texts preserve, in the interviewees' own voices, details of life under slavery, folk songs, and dialect expressions, making them both valuable historical sources and works of plain folk literature. As public information about the agency is limited, this note introduces only its editorial direction and the subject matter of its works.