Historian Discusses Ex-Slave Narratives in Lawrence University Main Hall Forum

APPLETON, WIS. -- Catherine Stewart, assistant professor of history at Cornell College, examines the oral histories of former American slaves collected during the 1930s in a Lawrence University Main Hall Forum.

Stewart presents, "Writing 'Race:' Performances of Blackness in the Ex-Slave Narratives of the Federal Writer's Project," Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 4:15 p.m. in Main Hall, Room 202. The event is free and open to the public.

The Federal Writer's Project, a creation of Franklin Roosevelt's administration during the Great Depression, attempted to document oral histories of former slaves. The project collected more than 1,200 narratives and was the first large-scale attempt to produce a written record of the institution of slavery as experienced by the slaves themselves.

Stewart will discuss how the alchemic mixture of memory, black oral tradition, literary convention and the "racial politics" that prevailed in the 1930s led to conflicting accounts of African-American history, identity and culture in the texts that the Federal Writer's Project ultimately produced.

A 1989 graduate of Lawrence, Stewart joined Cornell's history department in 1999 after earning her Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Last fall, she established a working partnership with the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as part of an ongoing project of collecting oral histories from distinguished African Americans living in Iowa for the museum's public archives.