Slave Narratives Collections on American Memory

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Date:         Thu, 5 Apr 2001 21:12:34 -0500
>Reply-To: sethw at maine.edu
>Sender: H-Net Labor History Discussion List <H-LABOR at H-NET.MSU.EDU>
>From: Seth Wigderson <Sethw at suscom-maine.net>
>Subject:      ANN: Slave Narratives Collections on American Memory
>To: H-LABOR at H-NET.MSU.EDU
>
>The Library of Congress National Digital Library Program announces the
>release of the online collection, "Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives
>from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, at the American Memory Web
>site at: <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/>
>
>"Born in Slavery" is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints
>and Photographs Divisions of the Library of Congress.  More than 2,300
>first-person accounts of slavery comprising over 9,500 page images with
>searcheable text, bibliographic records and 500 black-and-white
>photographs of former slaves are now available.  More than 200
>photographs are included from the Prints and Photographs Division that
>are now made available to the public for the first time.  The
>photographs of former slaves are linked to their corresponding
>narratives.
>
>The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) originally made no plans for
>collecting slave autobiographies and reminiscences.  Interviews with
>former slaves were undertaken spontaneously after the inception of the
>FWP and were included among the activities of several Southern Writers'
>Projects for almost a year before these isolated efforts were
>transformed into a concerted regional project, coordinated by the
>national headquarters of the FWP in Washington, D.C.  On April 1, 1937,
>the collection of slave narratives formally began with the dispatch of
>instructions to all Southern and border states directing their Writers'
>Project workers to the task of interviewing former slaves.  Today, the
>Slave Narrative Collection provides a unique and virtually unsurpassed
>collective portrait of a historical population.
>
>This online collection features an extensive introductory essay by
>Norman R. Yetman of the University of Kansas which includes information
>about the interviewers, the people interviewed, and the processes of
>collection and compilation, as well as a wealth of fascinating stories
>and candid portraits of former slaves.  The digitization of the
>collection was made possible by a major gift from the Citigroup
>Foundation.
>
>Please direct any questions to ndlpcoll at loc.gov
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