Voices Unchained: The Slave Narratives from the National Archives

By Tony Morinelli Editor

"Voices Unchained" opens the personal accounts of many former slaves at the time of the American Civil War. A carefully edited anthology Voice Unchained presents for today's audience an easily readable, content-based text in Standard English on the daily life of those in slavery from about 1845 to the Emancipation. "Voices Unchained" distinguishes itself by selecting specific topics from the narratives and setting them out in an orderly arrangement of subject-specific fields. Each field is assigned a chapter. In this way, specific subject matter may be gleaned directly without researching the numerous accounts individually. Thus, with such an arrangement, those interested in specifics such as the folk tunes of the time will find them gleaned from the narratives and collected in one chapter. The reader who may be interested in Southern plantation food or the clothing of the period will find these subjects similarly arranged in respective chapters. The researcher will also be most interested to find subjects generally unknown such as "Red Shirts," "Corn Shucking" or "Pot Meetings." "Voices Unchained" opens the personal accounts of many former slaves at the time of the American Civil War. A carefully edited anthology Voice Unchained presents for today's audience an easily readable, content-based text in Standard English on the daily life of those in slavery from about 1845 to the Emancipation. "Voices Unchained" distinguishes itself by selecting specific topics from the narratives and setting them out in an orderly arrangement of some thirty, subject-specific fields. Each field is assigned a chapter. In this way, specific subject matter may be gleaned directly without researching the numerous accounts individually. Thus, with such an arrangement, those interested in specifics such as the folk tunes of the time will find them gleaned from the narratives and collected in one chapter. The reader who may be interested in Southern plantation food or the clothing of the period will find these subjects similarly arranged in respective chapters. The researcher will also be most interested to find subjects generally unknown such as "Red Shirts," "Corn Shucking" or "Door-Pot Meetings." The chapter subjects are listed in a later paragraph below. Most important for today's reader, "Voices Unchained" edits the original narrative transcripts from the perceived slave dialect of the time and resets them in Standard English. The use of Standard English renders the texts more readable and accessible to students and others whose interests are not linguistic but are directed to the content of the narratives. "Voices Unchained" also removes and adjusts pejorative terms that serve no purpose in the classroom or other public settings. It cannot be stressed enough that "Voices" is intended for the middle and high school aged student and is not directed to scholars who have access to, and the ability to read the original language. This edition concerns itself with the narrative content, not necessarily with its form. "Voices Unchained" speaks to today's readership in the hope to open a world with which few are familiar and yet are integral to all, whether of African or European or Native American beginnings. 'Voices Unchained" hears those whose words are not found in history books, the classroom or in common knowledge. As a point of interest, iand as an indication of the necessity of this anthology, it should be noted that to classify this work on Amazon, there is no category for "slavery."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0D8V94MHP
• ISBN13: 9798328529785
• Release Date: July 2024
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 559 Pages
• Weight: 3.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.0" x 1.3" x 8.5"