An Introduction to the American Slave Narratives

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An Introduction to the American Slave Narratives

• Been Here So Long

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First Person Accounts

• Many Americans in the thirties remembered the
  nineteenth century as vividly as some people now
  recall the Depression years. The life history
  narratives tell of meeting Billy the Kid,
  surviving the Chicago fire of 1871, making the
  pioneer journey to the Western Territories, and
  fleeing to America to avoid conscription into the
  Russian Czar's army.

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http//newdeal.feri.org/asn/index.htm

• An online bibliography compiled by Bruce Fort,
  who created the American Slave Narratives An
  Online Anthology site. There are still more
  resources available on slavery and the WPA
  American Slave Narratives in your library than
  online.

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• First-hand accounts of slavery
• The slave narratives in both the New Deal Network
  site and the Univ. of Virginia site offer
  students a unique opportunity to read about
  slavery firsthand.

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What aspects of slavery were shared in common by
these men and women?

• What was working life like for them?

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All in a Day's Work Industrial Lore

• "You ain't an Iron worker unless you get
  killed...Men hurt on all jobs. Take the
  Washington Bridge, the Triboro Bridge. Plenty of
  men hurt on those jobs. Two men killed on the
  Hotel New Yorker. I drove rivets all the way on
  that job. When I got hurt I was squeezed between
  a crane and a collar bone broke and all the ribs
  in my body and three vertebrae. I was laid up for
  four years."

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• "Law, I reckon I was born to work in a mill. I
  started when I was ten year old and I aim to keep
  right on jest as long as I'm able. I'd a-heap
  rather do it than housework...Yessir, when I
  started down here to plant No. 1, I was so little
  I had to stand on a box to reach my work. I was a
  spinner at first, then I learned to spool. When
  they put in them new winding machines, I asked
  them to learn me how to work em and they did. If
  I'd a-been a man no telling how far I'd-a gone."

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• During the Great Depression of the 1930s, when as
  many as one out of four Americans could not find
  jobs, the federal government stepped in to become
  the employer of last resort. The Works Progress
  Administration (WPA), an ambitious New Deal
  program, put 8,500,000 jobless to work, mostly on
  projects that required manual labor. With Uncle
  Sam meeting the payroll, countless bridges,
  highways and parks were constructed or repaired.