Timelines – The Digital Past Course Blog

Timeline, Natalie Farrey

This timeline was created based on the life of Mr. George Johnson, an ex-slave once owned the president of the confederate states of America, Jefferson Davis. His interview provided a plethora of information about how enslaved people were treated and about music on plantations. However, as illustrated in the timeline, most of what he considered notable life events came after he left the plantation in 1884.

This was very surprising to me since I expected the interview to mostly focus on his life while enslaved not on his life afterwards. On further examination of the timeline you can also see that Mr. Johnson claimed to have left the plantation almost 20 years after the Civil War ended. This raised two questions: was this simply a matter of an elderly man having difficulty remembering dates or was this a matter of history?

I’m sure many slave owners were reluctant to give up their slaves and held on to them as along as possible. Though I can’t remember being taught anything like that in my history classes. I’m still unsure if this is just a simple mistake made by Mr. Johnson himself, or a problem with the way historians teach us this period in history. This question of how accurate the dates given were made the interview a little less useful than I had hoped.

Making a timeline relies on knowing about when an event happened, but Mr. Johnson was frequently unable to provide a date or gave a range for most events that happened in his life. Most of the time I had to calculate and give the most likely year for the timeline. So, in this aspect the interview was not all that useful, but it was extremely useful when it came to understand the person who was telling their life story.

Mr. Johnson spoke so proudly; he was obviously very proud of what he had accomplished in life. You could hear how passionate he was when he spoke about music. This ability to hear his tone and exact words was amazing. Although I’ll admit I had a hard time understanding what he was saying at certain points. I wasn’t the only one either, when reading the “Note on the Language of the Narratives” I discovered that the people conducting the interviews were also not able to understand the people they interviewed a good amount of the time. This is extremely evident in the transcriptions of the interviews that are missing many things Mr. Johnson had said.

Though the fact that they made an effort to preserve these people’s stories speaks a lot to the social history of the U.S. at the time. As stated in the Slave Narrative Collection opening essay, these interviews were collected during the years 1936 through 1938. To me this shows that people are genuinely taking an interest in what these people went through and want to preserve their stories. I think this really shows the United States effort to preserve our history.

Citations:

“A Note on the Language of the Narratives : Articles and Essays : Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938 : Digital Collections : Library of Congress.” The Library of Congress. Accessed January 22, 2020. https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/articles-and-essays/note-on-the-language-of-the-narratives/#note.

“An Introduction to the WPA Slave Narratives : Articles and Essays : Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938 : Digital Collections : Library of Congress.” The Library of Congress. Accessed January 22, 2020. https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/articles-and-essays/introduction-to-the-wpa-slave-narratives/.

Lomax, Alan, Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz, George Johnson, Lewis Wade Jones, Charles Spurgeon Johnson, and John W Work. Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 1 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1941. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04777a/.

Lomax, Alan, Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz, George Johnson, Lewis Wade Jones, Charles Spurgeon Johnson, and John W Work. Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 2 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1941. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04777b/.

Lomax, Alan, Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz, George Johnson, Lewis Wade Jones, Charles Spurgeon Johnson, and John W Work. Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 3 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1941. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04778a/.

Lomax, Alan, Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz, George Johnson, Lewis Wade Jones, Charles Spurgeon Johnson, and John W Work. Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 4 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1941. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04778b/.

Lomax, Alan, Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz, George Johnson, Lewis Wade Jones, Charles Spurgeon Johnson, and John W Work. Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 5 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1941. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04779a/.

Lomax, Alan, Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz, George Johnson, Lewis Wade Jones, Charles Spurgeon Johnson, and John W Work. Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 6 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1941. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04779b/.

Blog Post 5

The audio recordings that I listened to were of Mrs. Laura Smalley, a former slave, being interviewed by a Mr. John Henry Faulk. These interviews are part of a collection called, “Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories.”¹ These interviews of freed people took place in 1941. Because of this, the recordings were good for the time, however, the spinning of the record makes it hard to hear the talking. Also, the difference in dialects between the interviewer and the interviewee made it difficult to understand. Since Mrs. Smalley never had a proper education, trying to understand her sentences on top of her heavy accent was quite tedious. I never really considered oral histories a reliable primary source for the exact reason of language. I may interpret what she said in a completely different way from which it was intended. This could skew the information and distort the true history. Even with a transcript available, the transcriber could interpret the words differently from the interviewee and from me.

I did, however, learn quite a bit about Mrs. Smalley’s life. She lived in slavery for the first 12 years of her life, so her memory from those times is very vague. She does not remember to many significant events besides June 19^th, when the remaining slaves in America were freed including her. She remembers a few whippings, mainly the really bad ones. She also told a story of watching soldiers walk by her home all the time during the Civil War. She noted that most of the soldiers were colored. After Freedom Day she never went into specifics except when talking about her family. She married twice. The first was when she was only sixteen years old. That marriage lasted ten years until her husband died. Four years later she remarried. She said she has about fifty grandchildren and great-grandchildren combined. ² I was very surprised when she said that one of her great grandchildren was fifty years old. She also talked about the places she lived. She lived in an oil field for thirty years and then moved to Hempstead, TX, where she spent the rest of her life.

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1PBXXDk0RHDJgYeIgAP-hr3FtuEAi1klhBt5sxfnxZBA&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650

“Interview with Laura Smalley, Hempstead, Texas, 1941 (Part 1 of 5).” The Library of Congress, 1941, www.loc.gov/item/afc1941016_afs05496a/.

“Interview with Laura Smalley, Hempstead, Texas, 1941 (Part 2 of 5).” The Library of Congress, 1941, www.loc.gov/item/afc1941016_afs05496b/.

“Interview with Laura Smalley, Hempstead, Texas, 1941 (Part 3 of 5).” The Library of Congress, 1941, www.loc.gov/item/afc1941016_afs05497a/.

“Interview with Laura Smalley, Hempstead, Texas, 1941 (Part 4 of 5).” The Library of Congress, 1941, www.loc.gov/item/afc1941016_afs05497b/.

“Interview with Laura Smalley, Hempstead, Texas, 1941 (Part 5 of 5).” The Library of Congress, 1941, www.loc.gov/item/afc1941016_afs05498b/.

Blog Post #5-Timelines

Interviews are an important way to experience what actually happened in the past when we were not there to live through it ourselves. ³ The interview that I looked at did not focus on slavery, but more on her experiences as a child and what made her happy during that time. This is a good example of the concept learned through the class readings about how the former slaves who were interviewed were children at the time of slavery, and thus were unlikely to remember most of what happened. ⁴ Celia Black definitely spoke highly of her childhood, and when asked about historical moments, like Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, she was unable to recall the event. My timeline shows this, as well as the idea that the history we are taught is focused mainly on large historical events that affect the country, or the world, but are not necessarily pivotal to the individual. To Celia, her greatest memory was her birthday.

Celia was born towards the end of institutionalized slavery, so it was not surprising that she did not remember what may have happened with her family during that time. It was interesting that she never spoke about political events because I expected her to remember these instead of the smaller day to day activities that she had as a child. It was like she wanted to talk about what made her happy throughout her life.

As mentioned above, it was useful to listen to somebody who lived through the time period that is being researched, rather than reading about it in a textbook because it is more honest and raw. However, it was difficult to understand what she was saying because she had a thick accent, and was struggling to remember answers to the questions, and stuttered over her words. This is a limitation in recorded interviews, and in order to receive the correct information it is helpful to have a typed record as well (which was included by the Library of Congress). Celia and the interviewer, Elmer, while both southerners, had very different voices. It was apparent that they were raised in different areas, where Elmer was likely educated, and Celia may not have had a formal language education, a stereotype noted in one of the readings. ⁵

After experiencing both oral and written histories, I feel that oral interviews give a better sense of the emotional component of the past, but it is difficult to decipher exactly what is said. A transcript of the interview may be better for research purposes as it would remove the chance of recording any discrepancies in the information.

My Timeline:

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1Jq-eV6XaWOyU2KIVFHl7bn9Bx-0MmkGlZb6TUnQgoxM&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650

The Life of Uncle Bob

Timeline: https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1SbRgpSwGXnD2fDx6yAOkQ6vB2j9EYmji74EQseFfeUs&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650

Uncle Bob was born during the beginning of the civil war, so his experience with slavery is very different from those older than him. As discussed in previous readings, slaves narratives can be of those who were very young or old during slavery, this is the case of the former.⁶ He doesn’t really speak about being a slave, as he probably doesn’t remember it, but what we do know is that he later would work on a farm as a worker. This can tell us that those who grew up as a slave, or at the very least had slaves as parents, went for labor close to what they already knew, such as farm work.

The major intersection of the two layers of the timeline is the civil war beginning and ending, with Bob’s birth in between. Frankly, being a slave in the civil war was probably much more different than being a slave before the war, as there was probably a sense of uncertainty about whether you were going to stay that way. This can tell us that being a slave isn’t probably something Bob remembers much about, due to his birth circumstances. Other intersections include the great war and WWI that begin before the interview happens. This shows us that despite being born a slave, Uncle Bob was able to survive some of the worst times in human history.

I was surprised that they never talked about the civil war, as this seems to be a major event, especially for enslaved people. In a way it makes sense why they never asked, as he was probably too young to remember at all. Still, just asking him “Do you remember anything about it” would probably have been a good idea. I’m surprised that they focused more on the little details of his life, such as him joining a church, which seems like an odd thing to talk about.

This interview is useful to figure out how people spoke back then to one another. Now obviously, a former slave speaking to a white man is going to have different speech patterns, as discussed in previous readings. ⁷ However, even understanding how slaves spoke to white people is important, because now we can better understand the culture between them. This is also the major limitation of the interview, as Uncle Bob seems very nervous or threatened in the interview. This could result in him telling the interviewers what they want to hear, rather than what actually happened. I held the belief that oral history isn’t always a very good source of information, due to human’s limited memory and social bias, and this interview seems to have justified that belief.

As mentioned before, the voice of Uncle Bob seems very nervous or threatened, like an animal backed up against a corner. He doesn’t seem very comfortable sharing his past, and rather tries to entertain the white interviewers rather than give them a definite history of his life. Thus, it becomes harder to transcribe their life and the source because of the social bias created by the relationships here.

This interview, and many slave narratives like it, can tell us of the relationships between white and black people a hundred years ago. Fear was the main characteristic between the two, and that creates a major bias when the two groups interact with one another. This makes it hard to trust a primary source when they’re talking to the other race, as a former slave will embellish the truth to make them seem funnier or more entertaining, rather than tell their white interviewer the truth about being a black person living in slavery.

Blog Post 5: Interview with Fountain Hughes, Baltimore, Maryland, June 11, 1949

For this assignment, I listened to an interview between Fountain Hughes, a 101-year-old ex-enslaved man, and Hermond Norwood, a WPA interviewer. ⁸ Hughes was living in Baltimore at the time of the interview. He previously worked as a manurer hauler when he first moved to the city. In his old age, he mostly stayed in his home and listened to radio as it played old religious songs he grew up hearing. I think this interview shows that even after the abolishment of slavery and the end of Reconstruction, ex-enslaved people still couldn’t find jobs that strayed away from the field. On a brighter note, however, a good portion of this interview deals with religious songs Fountain sung as a boy, and even up until the moment of the interview, which I think shows ex-enslaved people’s relationship and reliance on their religion.

Because of Fountain’s old age, I think it’s interesting to look at my timeline and see the range of events he lived through. He lived through the American Civil War and the establishment of Apartheid in South Africa, two racially charged moments in world history that still have repercussions in today’s society and people still haven’t healed from. This fact also shows the consistency of issues affecting the world at that time, no matter where they took place. What was most surprising was the fact that he didn’t talk about his time of enslavement in depth; though, with his age, it was also understandable. Hughes said he didn’t want to talk about it because he knew it made people feel bad, but when he did talk about, he wasn’t candid about his feelings, which I appreciated. He stated multiple times that being enslaved was like being treated like a “dog,” and that if he had to go back into being enslaved, he’d shoot himself first. I was also surprised by the fact that Norwood, the interviewer, didn’t try to pull answers out of Hughes. He just let him talk freely. Lastly, after having our class discussion on dialect, I was surprised that Hughes had a good grammar structure. I knew his time in school was probably limited, if any, (he did state that slaves weren’t allowed to read), so I was surprised to hear how he spoke and how the only real flaws present were due to him trying to remember and state his thoughts.

Blog Post #5

The interview that I chose was the one with Uncle Bob Ledbetter. He seemed to me to be a very kind, older man with a positive outlook on his life. The tone of his voice was cheerful and pleasant. Without the audio recording, it would be more difficult to discern his feelings when he spoke. The audio transcript gives a general idea of how he might have spoken, and the tone he used, but the audio recording gives a clearer picture.

Another way in which the recording is useful is in examining the accents of African Americans at the time. This is a topic that has come up more than once in our class readings. Transcripts cannot portray the nuances of an accent. This is an issue that came up in Lauren Tilton’s article, “Race and Place”. She noted how the interviewers for the ex-slave narratives solidified the many different accents of the interviewees into one general accent.⁹ With the audio recording, there’s little need for an inaccurate, accented transcript because the accent can be heard clearly and accurately through the audio. Because of this, these recordings are a valuable resource for linguists who wish to study the dialects, accents, and speech patterns of African Americans during the early 20th century. ¹⁰ Many of the recordings are not well made, unfortunately. I went through several different interviews before I chose Bob Ledbetter’s, and many of them had sound issues. However, from the bits and pieces that are clear, they give an accurate depiction of the different ways that African Americans spoke at the time.

Bob Ledbetter’s interview did not specifically go into a lot of detail about his experiences as a slave. He was born in 1861, the same year the Civil War started, and he was only four years old when it ended in 1865. However, it is clear that despite being technically free, he did not reap all the benefits. He never went to school, and he never learned basic math skills. He could only read because his father taught him, and later on he taught himself how to write. As a grown man, it appears that a great deal of his work involved cotton picking and other manual labor. Even though he was a freed man, he did not have the opportunities of a white man. ¹¹

What surprised me about this interview was how cheerful Bob was. He talked about the songs he used to sing, he laughed and was very friendly. What surprised me the most was his opinion of the people he worked for, the Norris family. He described Mr. Norris as “the meanest man there was around”, and yet he claims that he was never mistreated. It’s possible that he glossed over the Norris family because of the interviewer John Lomax, who was white. However, he may have been telling the truth. It’s difficult to know. ¹²

The timeline that I created is simple and small, because Bob Ledbetter gave very little concrete information about the events in his life. Most of the events I figured out through some basic subtraction and guesswork. The second timeline layer consisted of the dates of the beginning and end of the Civil War, the Stock Market Crash, and the Outbreak of WW2. Usually historians tend to focus on the large events of history, and ignore the smaller, more personal events of lesser-known individuals. My timeline takes Bob Ledbetter’s personal history and sets it against the backdrop of these large events in history. I believe that adding them both together gives them both context, and it allows for a fuller picture of history.

Timeline Links:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YUvdDq2A0NgtyE-r-55cbmag8lcF51GmY-Odjl1J4Hc/edit#gid=0

Blog #4: Fountain Hughes Interview

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1yuymGrfqyXu8LRDXBN9WrnB4dsk4Ayr4UzD_taeYAsw&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650
(note: Embed function was not working for this link)

The interview with Fountain Hughes revealed a lot concerning the experience of slaves post-abolition. Often, the historical narrative is approached with the oversimplified attitude that once slavery was abolished, the freed former slaves and their families were just that: free. Hughes discusses how the early days of his freedom were almost as confining and difficult as his youth in captivity. The freed slaves had nowhere to go, and work was difficult to find. Younger people were not allowed to be financially independent, as people would accuse them of stealing rather than acknowledge that they worked hard to earn their money. He describes hiding out in hidden places like barns or old cars, alongside his brother, because after they were freed (in his words: “turned out, like a lot of cattle”) they had no homes. These details add a new perspective on slavery and freedom. Legally, they might have been free, but socially and economically they were still kept down. This would only continue with the addition of Jim Crow Laws during reconstruction. One thing that was half-mentioned towards the end of the interview, but not actually explained on tape, was a mention of Hughes rejection of church-going. He makes some declarations about how he doesn’t go to church, and doesn’t believe in it, but fails to extrapolate. The interviewer offers to turn off the recorder for him, in case its a sensitive topic, but Hughes replies that it’s nothing offensive. Nevertheless, the recording stops there, and I feel like he might have had something really interesting to say on the matter, especially since throughout the different interviews I looked at, many of the interviewees expressed a stout devotion to Christian spirituality and worship.

This interview has the incredible perspective of a man who was 101 years old at the time of his interview. However, because of this, there were many things he could no longer remember, simply due to his age. One of the flaws of oral history as a primary source is that human memory is fallible—a fact supported by social psychologists and studies on the usefulness of witness testimony. However, that being said, one can learn a great deal about the cultural context of a memory based on how it is recounted. While there might be limitation to objectivity, due to innate human bias and imperfect recollection, the manner in which one remembers an event can relate a great deal about the events being described, the social climate and the speaker’s place in it at the time of the memory, and the way in which the speaker’s opinions have changed in the time since. From an anthropological perspective, oral history is an invaluable primary source because of this—the focus is less on objective truth, and more on the “truth” of the individual. I think that it stands as an similarly important tool for historical research as well, but the difficulties regarding specific facts and objectivity might come into play a bit more.

I think it is incredibly interesting that these interviews were conducted in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, especially because segregation was still in full swing at the time. I wonder whether the devastating socioeconomic impact of the Great Depression may have influenced people to feel increased sympathy for those who had always been at a disadvantage, now that they had experienced incredible poverty as well. But, then again, that might be a bit too idealistic of a concept given the social prejudices of the time.

Norwood, Hermond, and Fountain Hughes. Interview with Fountain Hughes, Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore, Maryland, November , 6, 1949. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1950037_afs09990a/.

Charlie Smith

This assignment was incredibly interesting. I listened to an interview by a former enslaved man who’s original name was Mitchel Watkins. He was bought by a man named Jake and moved to Galveston Texas and where he states he was “treated me just like he treated his children“. I found this interesting because he had nothing bad to say about the man who raised him. He talked about how he was a cowboys and they would all shoot guns and wear boots and cowboy shirts. He seemed to fit in.

I was confused though, because Charlie also talked of the fight between the north and south which I assumed was the civil war. And that the African Americans bought Louisiana. Some of the things Charlie was stating did not make a lot of sense. He claimed to have received a letter from the Social Security at age 133. I was curious about Charlie because of these statements I heard in the interview and it says Charlie died at age 105 according to medics. He also claims to have helped Billy the Kid capture and kill the man who assassinated President Garfield and was paid by the United states $500.00. The timing of these would fit into his life span though. I did not look further into this but it is hard for me to believe. I also found that he never mentioned kids, a wife, his birthday or some of the basic information I feel like a person would state in an interview.

In the interview I could hear the interviewer doubt Charlies answers and also sometimes Charlie did not answer the questions fully or he would talk about something completely different. The interviewer also sometimes sounded rude in my opinion and this could be due to the fact Charlie did not speak as intelligent as the interviewer.

Given the claims Charlie made It was hard to believe anything he said. I know there is some truth to it all but I figure when he was interviewed he was starting to become senile.

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=14E7PyfHHjOm2p0JZU6RvDw9FFgOU59SbJoWEdSD7EsM&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650

https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1975023_afs17510/

Uncle Bob Ledbetter

The ability to hear first hand stories from a former enslaved person should be eye opening for those who take the time to listen. Understanding the past is crucial way in preventing atrocities such as slavery from occurring again. The stories that are shared provide the listener with a closer understanding of what life was like for these individuals that encountered struggles and hardships such as the inability to attend formal schooling from Uncle Bob’s accounts¹².

The layers here intersect fluently with another because as Bob Ledbetter went through his life experiences, there were other groundbreaking events that were occurring. The timelines shows us that even though Uncle Bob encountered constant struggles, life continued to move in other areas of the world. The mainstream events listed in my timeline show that while America was still in a highly-racist environment, the country focused their attention to other areas like flight with the Wright brothers, the Yankees winning their first World Series, and the creation of the Panama Canal. Historians use these mainstream events to categorize areas of history. These events are separate in history however throughout the life of Uncle Bob Ledbetter, these events are what shaped the society that he lived in at the time.

The interview showed an overall lack of events. Perhaps this reflects the society that he lived in because he only reflected on his personal endeavors. There was little mention of mainstream events but he did mention what was important to him: signing, attending church, getting married, and having the ability to vote. This shows that social history are subjective to the interviewee. Unlce Bob Ledbetter felt that going to church and getting married was for more notable than the New York Yankees winning their first World Series.

This interview is useful for the same reasons that I mentioned in the first portion of this blog. The interview provides first-hand stories for listeners to reflect on when considering the life of people like Bob Ledbetter. Challenges for these interviews relate to the quality of the recording in the interview. The people that are being interviewed are old with little literacy which means there is an abundance of slang that needs to be deciphered through to understand. I assumed the quality of the recordings would not be great and this interview did confirm that. It proved to be quite difficult when trying to record dates that aren’t even mentioned but also simply understanding small phases was difficult due to older technology.

The Library of Congress mentions that people conducting these interviews were not professional researchers as we understand today.¹³ The people that asked the questions for the interviews were from the Writer’s Project and had jobs such as: actors, directors, painters, etc. By using workers that were not professional researchers, the transcribing process might prove to be difficult because of the different language that is used. Yes, both parties speak English but there are regional dialects¹⁴ like we hear in this interview, specifically in the transcription where only question marks are provided.

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1xrFjkNqXaqWxmyZHQG6w0W-FZHXy0wTDzrDD9IB3_I0&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650

Blog post 5 / Skill assignment 4

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRiCJ7ek3wVoOHTfzw1X8AhM2yfmBLs1BQQ40dwepiN707dv_95yct2tG5Z-QSQXHimWdiEgAC-hDyj/pubhtml

I listened to “Interview with Aunt Harriet Smith, Hempstead, Texas, 1941,” which was a four part interview. One of the things we can learn about the experience of enslaved people from this interview is that church was a very big component in a lot of their lives. Harriet Smith talks about her relationship to the church and how it played a significant role in her life, from childhood to adulthood.

The two timeline layers intersect because Harriet Smith’s personal history is impacted by the larger, political history. Her personal history includes her experience as an enslaved woman, her spirituality, and her relationships. These micro aspects of her life were impacted by the large political and national events, such as secession, the issuing of the emancipation proclamation, and FDR’s presidency. This experience with the timeline has taught me that categorizing the significant events of someone’s life is a challenging job because it’s difficult to know how much importance micro-events held in someone’s life when they are not there to tell you. But more importantly it requires a deep-level of analysis in order for the historian not to erase micro-histories. These autobiographical accounts stand “as one of the most enduring and noteworthy achievements of the WPA” and if done properly, the transcription of these oral accounts can help the proliferation of knowledge about slavery in the United States ¹⁵

I’m surprised the interviewee didn’t mention more detail about her children. She spent a significant portion talking about her past husbands, but never her children¹⁶. Regardless, this interview could be really useful for people studying the experiences of enslaved women in America. The limitations of the interview include the poor sound quality and the lack of scope in regard to the questions being asked.

By listening to the voices of the interviewer and interviewee I learned that what I, as the listener, would take away from the interview is going to be different than anyone else. Each listener has their own experience due to their background and experience with this process. It was hard to understand what was being said at times, but I feel as though if someone had practice it would be much easier. That being said, transcribing sources is very helpful to people who aren’t familiar to interviews such as these, but to transcribe the sources in the first place should require a bit of experience in order to get accuracy. But it’s important to note that someone transcribing these interviews should be aware of the possible reproduction of racial stereotypes and biases¹⁷