Dr. Baughman

Background Info about the WPA Slave Narratives

During the Great Depression, the Federal Writers Project [part of the Works Projects Administration (WPA)] conducted more than 2,300 interviews with former slaves from 1936-1938. Not only did the WPA provide jobs for many unemployed, but through these interviews, they preserved a portion of our history that would have otherwise been lost to history. These interviews are important to helping us understand the full history of slavery in the U.S. by providing the voices of freed slaves to add to the voices of slave owners, escaped slaves, and abolitionists.

Your Assignment

For your paper, you will read two narratives of your choice from the Library of Congress website provided to you

(https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/aboutthis-collection/).

While you read these interviews, think about the questions below. Be sure to keep in mind that these interviews are NOT easy to use. Because they are transcribed, they can sometimes be difficult to read or understand (if you are having too much difficulty with the language of an interview, consider picking a different one).

It is also important to keep in mind that as a primary source, we must remember WHY and HOW it was created (you will address this in answering some of the questions below). We also do not have the questions that the interviewer asked, and this can further complicate our understanding of the source. Discuss the following questions in a unified essay. Do not answer the questions in separately numbered paragraphs, rather tie your paper together under a single topic statement so that it reads as a single essay. When necessary, use specific examples from the documents. Your paper should be 3-5 pages long, doublespaced,in size 12 font.

1. Give a brief summary of the lives of each interviewee.

2. Even though we do not know the specific questions asked by the interviewer, can you infer any of the questions asked? If so, what are some of the questions you believe the interviewer may have asked? Explain how or why you came to this conclusion.

3. How are the experiences of the two interviewees similar? Give examples of how they were similar.

4. How are the experiences of the two interviewees different? Give examples of how they were different.

5. More than 70 years had passed since emancipation by the time these interviews were conducted. How old was the interviewee when emancipation occurred (you may have to guess)? How well do you think the interviewee remembers their life as a slave?

6. Do you think the interviews you read are reliable as historical documents? Why or why not? Think about how well you remember incidents from your childhood or how well your grandparents (or other elderly people) remember stories from theirs. Use historical thinking and analysis to conclude how much history we can glean from these interviews, and what this means for our understanding of slavery as a historical narrative.