Project, Federal Writers

In the 1920s and 1930s, an interest in slave narratives was rekindled, and as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Progress Administration, more than 2,000 first-person accounts of slavery were collected, as well as 500 black and white photographs.

The collection was compiled in 17 states between 1936 and 1938. Many of the former slaves interviewed were well into their 80s and 90s - some were even past 100.

They provide powerful insight into a part of America's history that is no longer in living memory - it exists instead in the Library of Congress. One