The Great Depression of the 1930s was the most devastating economic crisis ever experienced in the United States. In response to massive unemployment throughout the entire country, the federal government under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt created a wide range of programs to achieve economic recovery. Among the most prominent of these New Deal programs was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which was designed to put unemployed peopte to work using their skills on public-works projects such as building roads, dams, bridges, and swimming pools.
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In an effort to provide unemployed writers with work during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the U.S. Government, through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), funded the Federal Writers" Project. One of the group"s most noteworthy and enduring achieve ments was the Slave Narrative Collection, consisting of more than 2,000 transcripts of interviews with former slaves, who, in blunt, sim ple 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 occupa tions 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 life in the South before, during, and after the Civil War, these memoirs, most importantly, preserve the opinions and perspectives of those who were enslaved. Invaluable to students, teachers, and specialists in Southern history, this compelling book will intrigue anyone interested in the African-American experience.
