On this site, you will find links to manuscripts, unique images, archival repositories and their finding aids, sound recordings, and more. Explore as much as your time permits. Start with the four “quantitative interrogatives”: who? what? when? where? Use these questions to guide your discovery.
— Dr. Melanie Zeck
“The recordings of former slaves in Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-two interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings. The individuals documented in this presentation have much to say about living as African Americans from the 1870s to the 1930s, and beyond.
All known recordings of former slaves in the American Folklife Center are included in this presentation. Some are being made publicly available for the first time. Unfortunately, not all the recordings are clearly audible. Although the original tapes and discs are generally in good physical condition, background noise and poorly positioned microphones make it extremely difficult to follow many of the interviews. It is important to note, that an additional 2300 non-audio interviews with ex-slaves are available online: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. The contextual and interpretive material accompanying those interviews are often equally useful for understanding the recordings in this presentation.
Three of the recordings presented here were made for the Commonwealth of Virginia between 1937 and 1940 by Roscoe E. Lewis in affiliation with the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Another ten recordings are part of a 1300-disc collection donated to the Library by the American Dialect Society in 1984. Five of these interviews were recorded by Lorenzo Dow Turner in 1932 and 1933 in the Gullah areas of South Carolina and Georgia. The remainder were recorded by Archibald A. Hill and Guy S. Lowman in Virginia from 1934 to 1935.The remaining thirteen recordings were made by a number of different fieldworkers. The earliest came from a 1935 recording expedition to Georgia, Florida, and the Bahamas by Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle. Their goal was to collect stories and music from African Americans in these areas. In 1940, John A. Lomax, who had recently been appointed honorary curator of the Library of Congress’s Archive of Folk Song, and his wife Ruby T. Lomax conducted interviews in Texas. These were followed by recordings made in 1941 by Robert Sonkin (in Alabama), and by John H. Faulk (in Texas) with support from a Rosenwald scholarship and the Library of Congress. In 1941, as part of a joint venture between the Library of Congress and Fisk University, Charles S. Johnson, Lewis W. Jones, John W. Work, and Alan and Elizabeth Lomax conducted interviews in Mississippi. Hermond Norwood, a Library of Congress engineer at the time, recorded an interview in 1949 in Maryland. The most recent interviews were conducted by Elmer E. Sparks in 1974 (in Texas) and 1975 (in Florida).
Efforts were made to collect biographical information about the interviewees and interviewers. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, only a small amount of information was found about the former slaves. A book and numerous newspaper and magazine articles were written about Charlie Smith, who lived to be 137. Fountain Hughes was interviewed by the Towson, Maryland, Jeffersonian in 1952 when he was 101. Transcripts of WPA interviews with Samuel Polite and Dave White and with Billy McCrea’s brother are available, as are photographs and field notes related to several former slaves. However, for most of the ex-slaves, it is their interviews that provide the most complete information about them. More information is available about the people who conducted the interviews; summaries are found in Biographies of the Interviewers.
The recordings in this online collection provide an opportunity for linguists to examine the development of Black English and the transformation of language over time. Transcriptions of recordings received from the American Dialect Society are available for the first time in this presentation as are transcriptions of several other previously published interviews, including those made for the book The Emergence of Black English: Text and Commentary, edited by Guy Bailey, Natalie Maynor, and Patricia Cukor-Avila (Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 1991) and appear with slight modifications in this presentation. American Folklife Center staff transcribed the remaining recordings. The transcripts, for the most part, are presented in standard English; however, as the audio tracks attest, the speakers all render their stories in a variety of dialects that reflect their heritage. Recordings that suffer from poor audio quality have gaps in their transcriptions, but even in those cases, the transcriptions are a useful tool for following and understanding the interviews.
Twenty-four songs (or song fragments) are included in the recordings. Many of the songs are difficult to identify because folk melodies and lyrics tend to change over time. Please note that this presentation was formerly called Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories.”
Collection of field recordings of African American, Bahamian, and Haitian songs, music, tales, and church services recorded on instantaneous discs by Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in 1935 for the Archive of American Folk Song. Zora Neale Hurston accompanied the recording expedition in Georgia and Florida, but she not did go to the Bahamas. Recordings include blues, work songs, ballads, tall tales, dance music, ring dances, circle games, sea songs, string band music, vodou music, guitar, harmonica, drums, children’s games and songs; gospel music, and church services with sermons, hymns, and prayers. The collection includes interviews conducted on St. Simon’s Island with speakers of Gullah. Among these speakers of Gullah is Wallace Quarterman, who had been enslaved.
The collection consists of field recordings of ballads, folk songs, cowboy songs, blues, lullabies, children’s songs and games, hymns, gospel music, shape note singing, fiddle tunes; a few Mexican American lullabies and songs, and a few French Creole songs. Also recorded were African American sermons and church services, children’s play party songs, African American blues, gospel music, hymns, and work songs including railroad workers’ track lining and tie tamping chants. Manuscripts include correspondence and a field report by John A. Lomax. Also included are some song transcriptions, including correspondence from Mrs. Elizabeth Fulks, Prairie Lea, Texas, and song texts in her hand. Notes include description of “Baptizing on the Clara Muziques Plantation,” near Natchez, Mississippi, and descriptions of funeral services; plus descriptions of traveling throughout the southern states to collect folksongs.
Includes interviews with former slaves Bob Ledbetter, Uncle Billy McCrea, and Joe McDonald.
Collection comprises sound recordings, recording logs, and transcripts of song texts, correspondence (1938), field notes, reports, and ethnographic information from a field recording trip made by Robert Sonkin to Shell Pile, near Port Norris, New Jersey, and from there to Gee’s Bend and other locations in Alabama in June-July 1941. Sonkin’s field notes describe the African-American community of Shell Pile, named for the oyster shucking industry established there. Sonkin recorded African-American quartets performing gospel music in Shell Pile, N.J. June 25, 1941. However, most sound recordings in this collection were made in various locations in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, and document African-American prayer meetings, sermons, gospel music, spirituals, hymns, jubilee quartet singing, blues, school children singing, recitations, as well as conversations. These include discussions about health and home remedies, about the Gee’s Bend school, and about the Farm Security Administration (FSA) Gee’s Bend project. Narratives by two former slaves, Isom Moseley and Alice Gaston, were recorded in Gee’s Bend on July 21, 1941.
Collection of field recordings of predominantly African American choral music, spirituals, gospel music, emancipation songs, vocal quartets and sextettes, folk songs, ballads (including Child ballads), popular songs, personal narratives of former slaves Mrs. Jessie, Mrs. Williams, and Annie Williams, prayers, poems, sermons, storytelling, and speeches, including a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt at Hampton Institute; and other material, including a Joe Louis fight with James Braddock, recorded in Virginia by Roscoe E. Lewis and others from 1937 to 1942. A list of the recordings and correspondence regarding the duplication of the collection (1944-1946) is included.
Field recordings of popular songs and religious songs, with solos, duets, and choruses from white and black singers; gospel quartets, recitation of poems; St. Mary’s Holiness church service (Comfort, North Carolina) with hymns, gospel music, readings, testimonies, and preaching; an interview with former slave Fountain Hughes conducted by Hermond Norwood in Baltimore, Maryland, June 11, 1949.
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