Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More

The Works Progress Administration begins to collect the stories of formerly enslaved Black people.

1937

SLA
RES
TFCM

More than 2000 interviews are conducted in 17 states. The interviewers, including author Zora Neale Hurston, listen and gather information on care and survival strategies, as well as other elements of everyday life.

Over the years, multiple critiques of these interviews will illuminate the racial and class dynamics that are sometimes evident between interviewer and interviewee. At the same time, the breadth of medical and cultural knowledge held in the interviews is often the only remaining evidence of these experiences. One tradition uplifted in these interviews is that of "fireside training," which is how enslaved elders taught younger people their medical and cultural practices.