This book offers a first-person perspective on the institution of slavery in America, providing powerful, engaging interviews from the WPA slave narrative collection that enable readers to gain a true sense of the experience of enslavement.• Provides a historical overview of the scholarship on slavery via first-person perspectives into the institution of slavery• Supplies an introductory essay for each theme as well as brief contextual explanations for each excerpt with the text of the oral narrative• Supplies primary source documents in the form of interviews with actual slaves from the WPA slave narratives that allow readers to better understand the experiences of those who lived in slavery• Presents a history of the slave narratives project under the New Deal• Gives eye-opening insights into the plight of women within the institution of slavery