When I Was a Slave

Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection

Author: Norman R. Yetman
ISBN: 9780486420707

In an effort to provide unemployed writers with work during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States Government, through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), funded the Federal Writers' Project. One of the group's most noteworthy and enduring achievements was the Slave Narrative Collection, consisting of more than 2,000 transcripts of interviews with former slaves, who, in blunt, simple words, provided often-startling first-person accounts of their lives in bondage. This book reprints some of the most detailed and engrossing life histories in the collection. Each narrative is complete.Thirty-four gripping testimonies are included, with all slave occupations represented — from field hand and cook to French tutor and seamstress. Personal treatment reported by these individuals also encompassed a wide range — from the most harsh and exploitative to living and working conditions that were intimate and benevolent.An illuminating and unique source of information about lif

Publisher: Courier Corporation
Publish Date: 2012-03-01

Subjects: Literary Collections / American / African American, Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Black Resource Center (Location: 2C)