User:Volksword/slavenarratives

WPA slave narratives
During the Great Depression, the New Deal Works Projects Administration (WPA) used unemployed writers and researchers from the Federal Writers' Project to interview and document the stories of surviving African-Americans who had been part of the American slave system up until the Thirteenth Amendment. Produced between 1936 and 1938, the narratives retell the experiences of more than 2,300 former slaves in 17 different states. The director of the Office of Negro Affairs, Sterling Allen Brown supported the efforts of the only black division that interviewed ex-slaves and requested that interviewers not insert their own biases into their descriptions. Historians who were interested in slave history refused to read the WPA narratives due to the extent of the editing done to them.

Norman R. Yetman questioned the credibility of the interviews collected, especially those interviews and research done during the era of the New Deal, but maintained the argument that all of the narratives were essential to understanding the history of slavery from multiple perspectives.(citation?) Donna J. Spindel argues that the weaknesses and flaws of the narratives are too apparent to be ignored, and that the attempts to solve the highlighted problems are too few and ineffective as opposed to the amount of criticism directed at them. Historians base their research on their assumptions of what is important, Spindel explains, which results in incomplete records, and that in order to fix the issues, these historians should no longer determine facts based on misguided interpretations. Sharon Ann Musher touches on cultural contestation vs. essentialism, and points out that the memories, opinions, attitudes, mentalities, and experiences of the interviewed former slaves must be documented properly. The interviewers' biases need not be included in their accounts, and the questions should not have been crafted in a way that would make the slaves' narratives appear to shed a positive light on slavery and its effects on African men, women, and children.

According to John W. Blassingame and Sharon Ann Musher, the WPA narratives were not verbatim accounts and were heavily edited by the interviewers, editors, and federal employees. Musher specifically discusses the authenticity and quality of the ex-slaves’ stories, and the extent of corruption from the original interview.(citation?) While Musher’s research notes that some interviewers noted that the southern dialect made it hard to adhere to an authentic writing style, Blassingame points out several instances of conflicting statements claiming that while an interviewee may speak near-perfect English, the transcripts of the interviews implied the opposite.