Dear colleagues: >>Harold S. Forsythe wrote: . . . the WPA narratives are the endpoint of slave autobiography collection. John Blassingame did an excellent job of tracking down most other sources but there still may be some out there. >> Harold makes an important point. There is a valuable collection of earlier slave autobiographical materials online from UNC at http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/. A number of other Web sites that have digitized some of these materials are listed at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snrelated.html#sites, and there is an additional Library of Congress collection of audio-recorded interviews online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/. The Blassingame work that Harold cites is John W. Blassingame, ed., Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977; Library of Congress call number E444 .S57). Other printed sources, not including those discovered in the last several years, are listed in the "Slave Narratives" section of the bibliography at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snrelated.html#bib. One other point: someone mentioned that the historical collections online at the Library of Congress are not necessarily from the Library's own holdings. That is correct, but only to a very limited extent, and in those few cases when the original materials are held entire or in part by another institution, the provenance is clearly displayed on the collection's home page: see http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/petitions/ for a nice example. Best wishes-- --Jurretta Heckscher To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html