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Help Technical support is free with all GEM products. Please write, call, or email us at:
Trial Users: If the 24-hour period has expired and you're interested in seeing more before you purchase, submit this brief form and we'll extend your trial. Help Topics Basic Requirements Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view the documents, which are presented as contained in the print collection to preserve any handwritten editorial comments added by LOC staff. The Reader is free of charge, and may be downloaded from Adobe's Web site. The sound recordings from the LOC Archive of Folk Culture require Real Player 7. The latest version, the basic RealOne Player, is also available free of charge. Additional content is best viewed using a minimum of a 56K modem, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5 or Netscape Communicator 4.6, and monitor resolution set for 800 x 600. Navigating The American Slavery website contains two basic sections: the overview of the collection with related links, available without charge from the home page, and the collection itself. The overview includes a description of the original Library of Congress project, a history of the project, the introduction and appendices to the initial Rawick compilation, and selections from his analysis of the collection, From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. Follow the 'About the Collection' link to access this material. Professor Howard Pott's description of his Comprehensive Index, and its foreword, by Dr. Charles Joyner, may be accessed from 'About the Index.' Professor Donald M. Jacobs' Preface to Index to The American Slave may be accessed from 'About the Subject Index.' The Collection Once logged in, the first page presented describes the various ways to access the collection: the alphabetical index, the subject index, as they were presented in the print volumes, or through a search.  Use the navigation on the left side of the page to access alphabetical lists of narrators, masters, interviewers or the counties where the narrators lived in slavery. Clicking directly on the name of a narrator will access the entry for that narrator. Clicking on the name of a master, interviewer or county will bring up a list of the narrators indexed for that particular master, interviewer or county.  The Subject Index The subject index contains A-Z listings of the various topics compiled by Professor Donald M. Jacobs in his Index to The American Slave.  Click on the subject of interest to retrieve a list of the narrators discussing that subject. The Print Volumes These pages present lists of the narrators as they appeared in the original print volumes, with links to the introductions to those volumes.  Searching The keyword search queries for subjects, people, counties, and states. Use the two-letter state abbreviation to find narrators by the state where they lived in slavery. States where the narrators are interviewed are listed by full name.  With the advanced search page, you can find narratives
by subject, by name of the narrator, interviewer or master , by
location where the narrators lived in slavery or where they lived
when interviewed, by the print volumes, by age or year of birth.
Click on the  The search options may be combined to find, for example, all of the narrators born before the Civil War who lived in Missouri.  Viewing the Narratives Click on the narrator's name to bring up the entry or entries for that narrator. The entry for Emmeline Wadille, for example, has two listings, one for each county she resided in while enslaved.  The links to the left provide information from the Comprehensive Index on how that particular category was indexed by Professor Potts. Linked names of the master or interviewer, county, volume and subjects will retrieve all the other narrators indexed under that name, volume, or subject. 'About the Source' links to the introduction to that particular volume.  As noted above, Acrobat Reader is required to view the narratives. The Reader is free of charge, and may be downloaded from Adobe's web site. Once you have found the desired document, clicking on 'Read the Narrative' will either initiate the Reader or start saving the file to a local drive.  The collection is based on the original typewritten manuscripts found in the Library of Congress. As such, the quality of the narratives varies considerably. In some cases, the typeface or the handwritten edits may be difficult to read. Magnifying the view of the document may help. Use the Reader's zoom-in tool to increase your view. Some of the narratives contain collected interviews with a number of individuals. If the narrator for which you've searched is not immediately apparent, you may need to scroll down to find the beginning of that particular interview. Adobe Acrobat Reader The configuration and version of your Adobe Acrobat Reader software will affect the way you access documents in the collection. If you have Acrobat Reader 4 or later you may either view the document in your browser or you may choose to download the document and view it later. Acrobat Reader 5 You can change Acrobat Reader 5's configuration by opening it and choosing Edit/Preferences/Options. Check 'Display PDF in Browser' in the 'Web Browser Options' to view the narratives in your browser. Acrobat Reader 4 You can change Acrobat Reader 4's configuration by opening it and choosing File/Preferences/General. In the Options section of the dialog box check "Web Browser Integration;" this will allow you to view the documents in your browser. If you would rather save the documents, leave this option unchecked. Acrobat Reader 3 The default configuration for Acrobat Reader 3 saves the document to a local disc. To configure Acrobat Reader 3 to allow PDFs to be viewed in a browser window, check your Acrobat Reader Help Files under the topic: "Using PDF on the Web." For Further Assistance If you require further assistance, please feel free to contact Tech Support. |
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