Born in Slavery | The Federal Writers’ Project Slave Narratives, 1936–1938
Hall of Records • Stories and Oral History
Born in Slavery | The Federal Writers’ Project Slave Narratives, 1936–1938
During the 1930s, Federal Writers’ Project workers recorded more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and collected hundreds of photographs of formerly enslaved people across the United States.
Record Summary
At a Glance
The collection preserves voices of people born into slavery while also requiring careful reading because interview conditions, transcription choices, race and power shaped how many accounts were recorded.
Oral-History Record
Thousands of First-Person Accounts
The Library of Congress collection contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts and approximately 500 black-and-white photographs. Interviews were gathered in seventeen states during the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration.
Reading the Archive
Voices Preserved Through an Unequal Process
The narratives are invaluable because they preserve memories of enslavement, family, work, violence, emancipation and life afterward. They must also be read critically: interviewers varied in training and background, dialect was sometimes rendered through editorial conventions, and racial power could affect what an interviewee felt safe saying.
Why This Record Matters
Oral History Keeps People From Becoming Abstractions
Slavery is often summarized through law, economics and statistics. These interviews return individual memory to the record. The Hall preserves the collection as both testimony and an archive whose creation must itself be examined.
Sources
Review the Record
- Library of Congress — About Born in Slavery
- Library of Congress — William Branch
- Library of Congress — Voices and Faces from the Collection
Featured image: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division — William Branch, photographed in 1937 for the Federal Writers’ Project slave-narrative collections.
Image-use note: Library of Congress lists no known restrictions on reproduction for the William Branch photograph; collection materials may still raise privacy/publicity considerations.
This entry is an editorial archive built from the cited public record. Official findings are distinguished from allegations, family concerns, historical interpretation and unresolved questions. Reverify active cases and image rights before publication.
