Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938

U.S. Works Progress Administration, Federal Writers' Project · Library of Congress · 1941 · Originally in English · introductory

2,300+ slave narratives describing frolics, floor-setting, and jook—primary sources for African American vernacular

About the author

The Federal Writers' Project was a collective government initiative under the Works Progress Administration (WPA), employing hundreds of writers and interviewers. The narratives were not authored by a single person but compiled and recorded by various WPA field workers across the South, many of whom conducted interviews in communities where they lived. The collection was preserved by the Library of Congress and later digitized to make it fully accessible.

Documents these traditions

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