“Uncovering the Truth: Evaluating Freedpeople Interviews from the FWP”

Our next assignments related to the reading ¨View from the Bottom Rail¨ by James West Davidson and Mark H. Lytle, will continue to explore the Representation vs. Reality of Slavery and Freedom in this country.  
As discussed, the slaves (and poor people in general) left few written records behind.  What we do have are accounts from a variety of other (mostly white) people who had the priviledge to do so, as well as interviews conducted by the FWP (Federal Writerś Project) with formerly enslaved people.  We will be working on finding and  evaluating the trustworthiness and accuracy of a variety of these sources.  We will need to analyze and evaluate various sources within each category, then use those findings to make comparisons and try and understand larger, overarching ideas being promoted at the time.  Can we uncover and construct an objective truth?
To begin with, we will take a closer look at FWP interviews discussed in the text so that you can gain first hand knowledge of these important primary sources.
Use the classpage database links and information that the librarian Wendy Chu discussed on Monday (handout posted under Course Content)  to locate and discuss three (3) different freedpeople interviews from the FWP
For each one:
— cite source
— name of interviewee
— summarize what the interview was about
— analyze what perspective that primary source offers (does it seems believable, why/why not?)  based on some of the criteria discussed in ¨View from the Bottom Rail¨ (for example, what kind of questions were being asked, who was conducting the interview and how might this have influenced the answers that were given).
NOTE:  feel free to look at as many as you like of course to get a wider perspective.  Ultimately, we want to also evaluate how we feel about the FWP overall as a useful, historical reference.  
Below ill attach View from the bottom of the rail and the library worksheet