Existing comment:
How do we know what we know?
Uncovering touchstones to a vanishing past
Documentary Research:
Woodlawn's story was pieced together using many primary sources -- documents or objects created during the time of study. Researchers combed through archived, libraries, historical societies, and personal collections looking for pieces that filled in the puzzle.
"I was born down on the river bottom about four miles below Edward's Ferry... I belonged to old Doctor White...
They raised most corn and oats and wheat down on the river bottom in those days... They had a lot o' men and would slay a lot o' wheat in a day. It was pretty work to see four or five cradlers in a field and others following them raking the wheat in bunches and others following binding them in bundles."
-- 1937 Works Progress Administration oral history or Reverend Philip Johnson, formerly enslaved in Montgomery County
Oral Histories:
No one understands history like those who have lived in. Oral histories are recorded or transcribed memories -- often of everyday people -- that capture unique personal perspectives available nowhere else. These valuable records reveal facets of history that are not recorded elsewhere, like the daily lives and struggles of formerly enslaved men and women who were rarely allowed to learn to read or write. |