Federal Writers’ Project. WPA Slave Narratives. Web. 2007-2024. The WPA Slave Narratives must be used with care. There is, of course, the problem of confusion in memory resulting from (73+ years) of the participants. In addition, inexperienced interviewers sometimes pursued question lines related to their own interests and perspectives and attempted to capture the colloquialism of the informant’s speech. The interviews provide fascinating insight and surprisingly candid information, however.
Person Interviewed: Andrew Simms Location: Sapulpa, Oklahoma Age: 80 My parents come over on a slave ship from Africa about twenty year before I was born on the William Driver plantation down in Florida. My folks didn’t know each other in Africa but my old Mammy told me she was captured by Negro slave hunters […]
Person Interviewed: Andrew Simms Location: Sapulpa, Oklahoma Age: 80 My parents come over on a slave ship from Africa about twenty year before I was born on the William Driver plantation down in Florida. My folks didn’t know each other in Africa but my old Mammy told me she was captured by Negro slave hunters
Person Interviewed: Andrew Moss Location: Knoxville, Tennessee Place of Birth: Wilkes County, Georgia Date of Birth: 1852 “One ting dat’s all wrong wid dis world today,” according to Andrew Moss, aged negro, as he sits through the winter days before an open grate fire in his cabin, with his long, lean fingers clasped over his
Interviewer: T. Pat Matthews Person Interviewed: Andrew Boone Location: Wake County, North Carolina. Harris Farm. Age: 90 years Occupation: Worked in show business I been living in dese backer barns fifteen years. I built this little shelter to cook under. Dey cut me off the WPA cause dey said I wus too ole to work.
Interviewer: Emily Hobson Person Interviewed: Anderson Whitted Location: Rockville, Indiana Place of Birth: Orange County, North Carolina Age: 88 Special Assignment Emily Hobson Dist. #3 Parke County INTERVIEW WITH ANDERSON WHITTED, COLORED EX-SLAVE, OF ROCKVILLE, INDIANA Mr. Whitted will be 89 years old next month October 1937. He was born in Orange County, North Carolina.
Interviewer: Sadie B. Hornsby Person Interviewed: Anderson Furr Location: Broad Street, Athens, Georgia Anderson Furr’s address led the interviewer to a physician’s residence on Broad Street, where she was directed to a small frame house on the rear of the lot. The little three-room cottage has a separate entrance from Pulaski Street. Three stone steps
Interviewer: Mary A. Hicks Person Interviewed: Analiza Foster Location: 1120 Sound Blount Street, Raleigh, North Carolina Location of Birth: Person County NC Age: 68 An interview with Analiza Foster, 68 of 1120 South Blount Street, Raleigh, North Carolina. I wuz borned in Person County ter Tom Line an’ Harriet Cash. My mammy belonged ter a
Interviewer: Lauana Creel Person Interviewed: Amy Elizabeth Patterson Location: Evansville, Indiana Place of Birth: Cardiz, Trigg County, Kentucky Date of Birth: July 12, 1850 Place of Residence: 512 Linwood Avenue, Evansville, Indiana Age: 87 Ex-Slave Stories District #5 Vanderburgh County Lauana Creel MEMORIES OF SLAVERY AND THE LIFE STORY OF AMY ELIZABETH PATTERSON The slave
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person Interviewed: Amsy O. Alexander Location: 2422 Center Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 74 Occupation: Track laborer, Track foreman, Railroad builder [HW: Helps Build Railroad] “I was born in the country several miles from Charlotte in Macklenberg, County, North Carolina in 1864. “My father’s name was John Alexander and my mother
Interviewer: Anna Pritchett Person Interviewed: America Morgan Location: Indiana Place of Birth: Ballard County, Kentucky Date of Birth: 1852 Place of Residence: 816 Camp Street Federal Writers’ Project of the W.P.A. District #6 Marion County Anna Pritchett 1200 Kentucky Avenue FOLKLORE MRS. AMERICA MORGAN-EX-SLAVE 816 Camp Street America Morgan was born in a log house,
Interviewer: Perry Larkey Person Interviewed: Amelia Jones Location: North London, Kentucky Place of Birth: Manchester, KY Age: 88 Concerning slaves of this section of the country, I will quote experiences and observation of an old negro lady who was a slave, Mrs. Amelia Jones, living in North London, Kentucky. “Aunt Amelia” as she is known
Interviewer: Martin D. Richardson Person Interviewed: Ambrose Douglass Location: Brooksville, Florida Age: 92 In 1861, when he was 16 years old, Ambrose Hilliard Douglass was given a sound beating by his North Carolina master because he attempted to refuse the mate that had been given to him–with the instructions to produce a healthy boy-child by
Person Interviewed: Amanda Oliver Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Place of Birth: Missouri Date of Birth: November 9, 1857 Age: 80 I ‘membuh what my mother say, I was born November 9, 1857, in Missouri. I was ’bout eight years old, when she was sold to a master named Harrison Davis. They said he had two
Interviewer: Pearl Randolph Person Interviewed: Amanda McCray Location: Madison, Florida Occupation: House servant Mrs. McCray was sitting on her porch crooning softly to herself and rocking so gently that one might easily have thought the wind was swaying her chair. Her eyes were closed, her hands incredibly old and work worn were slowly folding and
Interviewer: Anna Pritchett Person Interviewed: Amanda Elizabeth Samuels Location: Indiana Age: 80 Place of Residence: 1721 Park Avenue Federal Writers’ Project of the W.P.A. District #6 Marion County Anna Pritchett 1200 Kentucky Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana FOLKLORE AMANDA ELIZABETH SAMUELS 1721 Park Avenue Lizzie was a child in the home of grandma and grandpa McMurry. They
Interviewer: Mary A. Hicks Person Interviewed: Alonzo Haywood Location: 1217 Oberlin Road, Raleigh, North Carolina Age: 67 Occupation: Blacksmith The Blacksmith An interview with Alonzo Haywood, 67 years old of 1217 Oberlin Road. On East Cabarrus Street is a blacksmith shop which is a survival of horse and buggy days, and the smiling blacksmith, a
Person Interviewed: Allen V. Manning Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma Place of Birth: Clarke County Mississippi Date of Birth: 1850 Age: 87 Occupation: Sells Milk I always been somewhar in the South, mostly in Texas when I was a young man, and of course us Negroes never got much of a show in court matters, but I
Interviewer: Ellen B. Warfield Person Interviewed: Alice Lewis Location: Baltimore, Maryland Place of Birth: Wilkes County, Georgia Age: 84 (Alice Lewis, ex-slave, 84, years old, in charge of sewing-room at Provident Hospital (Negro), Baltimore. Tall, slender, erect, her head crowned by abundant snow white wool, with a fine carriage and an air of poise mud
Person Interviewed: Alice Douglass Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Place of Birth: Sumner County, Tennessee Date of Birth: December 22, 1860 Age: 73 I was born December 22, 1880 in Summer County, Tennessee. My mother, I mean mammy, ’cause what did we know ’bout mother and mama. Master and Mistress made dey chillun call all nigger
Interviewer: Grace McCune Person Interviewed: Alice Bradley Location: Athens, Georgia Alice Bradley, or “Aunt Alice” as she is known to everybody, “runs cards” and claims to be a seeress. Apologetic and embarrassed because she had overslept and was straightening her room, she explained that she hadn’t slept well because a dog had howled all night
