Entailed recording and coding information from slave narratives gathered as part of the Federal Writers' Project. Between 1936 and 1938, federal authorities organized teams of interviewers in 17 states who gathered the recollections of over 2,000 former slaves. The typescript of these interviews, running to more than 10,000 pages, was deposited in the Library of Congress and has been available on microfiche for many years. Information on the actions, attitudes, beliefs and experiences of slaves was coded from 2,358 slave narratives.
