• Project Timeline

• Introduction to the LOC collection (PDF)

• 1941 introduction to the LOC collection (PDF)

• Introduction to the Mississippi Narratives

• Instructions to the interviewers (PDF)

• Sample narratives

• Introduction to the Index

• Acknowledgements

• Foreword by Dr. Charles Joyner

About the Collection—Project Timeline

Note: links to outside sites will open a new window.

1920s
As noted by Dr. Charles Joyner in his foreword to A Comprehensive Name Index, the first "systematic efforts to interview former slaves" appear to have begun in the 1920's with projects at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee under Paul Radin and Charles S. Johnson, and at Southern University in Louisiana under John B. Cade. (Charles Joyner, Foreword to A Comprehensive Name Index to The American Slave, by Howard E. Potts (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Publishing Co. 1997) viii.)

[To find out more about earlier slave narratives and autobiographies, visit the University of North Carolina's outstanding collection, Documenting the American South.]

1934
In 1934, a former student of Professor Johnson, Lawrence Reddick, presented a proposal to Harry L. Hopkins, director of the Federal Emergency Relief Agency (FERA) for a federally-funded project employing 500 African-American white-collar workers to interview former slaves. According to Dr. Joyner, however, "[a]proximately two hundred fifty interviews were conducted in 1934-35 as a pilot project under Reddick's direction, but the larger project never materialized." (Ibid., ix; George P. Rawick, From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, no. 11 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Publishing Co. 1972) xvi.)

Harry L. Hopkins Jordan Syndicate, Washington D.C. Library of Congress, Prints & Photograph Division [Reproduction No. LC-USZ62-102021 (b&w film copy neg.)]

[For more information on the New Deal and its organizations, including a historical essay by Mark Krasovic, see the New Deal Network's interactive web site.]

1935–1936
In 1935 and 1936, separate projects were underway in several southern states, particularly Georgia and Florida, including recording trips led by John A. Lomax, honorary curator of the Library of Congress' Archive of Folk Song. On June 25, 1936, John A. Lomax became National Advisor on Folklore and Folkways for the Federal Writers' Project under Director Henry G. Alsberg, and a national project, under the auspices of the FWP, was begun.

John Lomax and his son, Alan Lomax, traveled through the southern states in 1934 - 35, recording 286 discs now in the Library of Congress' Archive of Folk Culture as AFS 1-286. In 1935, Alan Lomax accompanied by Zora Neale Hurston and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle on a recording trip through Florida and Georgia. AFS 370-387. Similar trips were made by Hurston, Lomax and others throughout the 30's and 40's.

Zora Neale Hurston Summer 1935 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Lomax Collection [Reproduction No. LC-USZ61-1859 DLC (b&w film copy neg.)]

Primarily songs, calls or instrumentals and stories, the recordings also included a number of life histories. In 1978, Professor Rawick estimated that perhaps 26 of these interviews existed. In 1998, the Library of Congress, in a joint project with the New Press and the Smithsonian Institution, re-mastered these interviews for the book and radio documentary Remembering Slavery. Many of the other recordings are also available on cassette through the Public Services Office of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress, or on CD from Rounder Records.

Several of these recordings from the Library of Congress may also be heard on the American Slavery site.

1936–1938
The interviewers, primarily white, were instructed to report the details of their interviews "as accurately as possible in the language of the original statements" and received suggested questions and specific instructions on dialect usage from Lomax. As Professor Rawick notes, "the narratives were taken down in pencil or pen, most often after the interview, from memory or from scattered field notes supplemented by memory." George P. Rawick, The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography Supplement, Series 1 Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, No.35 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Publishing Co. 1978) xxx.

Mrs. Ruby Pickens Tartt at her home, Livingston, Ala. October 1940 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Lomax Collection [Call No. LOT 7414-B, no. N80]

[Review two sample interviews. Read more about the Federal Writers' Project and the WPA in Ann Bank's special presentation for the Library of Congress. ]

1939
In 1939, however, congressional funding for the FWP was cut and the project's efforts transferred to the Library of Congress for conservation under the direction of B.A. Botkin, Chief Editor of the Library's Writers' Unit. Botkin, who had served as Folklore Editor for the FWP, assembled the narratives that had been submitted by the states to the federal project into seventeen volumes for the Rare Book Room: "All editing had previously been done in the states or the Washington office. Some of the pencilled comments have been identified as those of John A. Lomax or Alan Lomax, who also read the manuscripts." George P. Rawick, From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, no. 11 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Publishing Co. 1972) 170 (B.A. Botkin's Introduction to the Indiana Narratives.)

BA Botkin National Archives [208-PU-11D-NS-7042-4]

[Read the rest of BA Botkin's introduction to the Indiana volume.]

In March 1939, John A. Lomax made another trip through the southern states, recording songs and stories of the region. For more information, including audio clips from the recording trip, visit Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax Southern States Recording Trip at the Library of Congress.

Uncle Billy McCrea (right) with John A. Lomax (center) and friends, at Billy's home in Jasper, Texas September 1940 Ruby T. Lomax, photographer Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Lomax Collection [Reproduction No. LC-USZ62-120994 DLC (b&w film copy neg.)]

1940s
Many narratives, however, did not reach the Washington office. The Georgia and Virginia collections were published separately in 1940, and selections of the narratives collected in Louisiana in 1945. Furthermore, as Professor Rawick discovered:

as I reread the material from the Rare Book Room of the Library of Congress collection several times, I was most struck by the fact that for many states we had only a small number of narratives. Most particularly, I noted that there were only 174 pages of narratives for Mississippi, a total of twenty-six interviews. This total, I felt, could hardly represent more than a mere sample of the narratives that should have been recorded in such an important slave state. I surmised either that the project had been deliberately curtailed by those who did not want such material in existence or that the bulk of the collection had never been sent to the national offices of the Federal Writers' Project in Washington, as they should have been, and might still be somewhere in Mississippi. Both guesses turned out to be correct.

George P. Rawick,
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography Supplement,
Series 1, Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, No.35
(Westport, Conn: Greenwood Publishing Co. 1978) x-xi.)

1970s
In 1973, Professor Rawick, with Ken Lawrence and Jan Hillegas, began their search for the remaining narratives. What they found was compiled in 22 volumes, published by Greenwood Press in 1978 and 1979.

Note: When reading the narratives, it is important to remember their context. Although the language used in the interviews could be considered offensive or disturbing at times, they are a reflection of the attitudes of their time and place.