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Good afternoon, This announcement is being sent to a number of lists. Please accept our apologies for any duplicate postings. The Library of Congress National Digital Library Program announces the release of the online collection, "Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, at the American Memory Web site at: <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/> "Born in Slavery" is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs Divisions of the Library of Congress. More than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery comprising over 9,500 page images with searcheable text, bibliographic records and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves are now available. More than 200 photographs are included from the Prints and Photographs Division that are now made available to the public for the first time. The photographs of former slaves are linked to their corresponding narratives. The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) originally made no plans for collecting slave autobiographies and reminiscences. Interviews with former slaves were undertaken spontaneously after the inception of the FWP and were included among the activities of several Southern Writers' Projects for almost a year before these isolated efforts were transformed into a concerted regional project, coordinated by the national headquarters of the FWP in Washington, D.C. On April 1, 1937, the collection of slave narratives formally began with the dispatch of instructions to all Southern and border states directing their Writers' Project workers to the task of interviewing former slaves. Today, the Slave Narrative Collection provides a unique and virtually unsurpassed collective portrait of a historical population. This online collection features an extensive introductory essay by Norman R. Yetman of the University of Kansas which includes information about the interviewers, the people interviewed, and the processes of collection and compilation, as well as a wealth of fascinating stories and candid portraits of former slaves. The digitization of the collection was made possible by a major gift from the Citigroup Foundation. Please direct any questions to ndlpcoll@loc.gov =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-= All postings to LM_NET are protected under copyright law. To quit LM_NET (or set-reset NOMAIL or DIGEST), send email to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST 4) SET LM_NET MAIL * Please allow for confirmation from Listserv. For LM_NET Help see: http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/ Archives: http://askeric.org/Virtual/Listserv_Archives/LM_NET.html See also EL-Announce for announcements from library media vendors: http://www.mindspring.com/~el-announce/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=