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African American ex-slave portrait, Samuel Diberts

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@ Ohio History Connection

Writers' Program (Ohio)

Description

Photograph of Samuel Diberts, an ex-slave who lived at 726 Dibert Street in Springfield, Clark County, Ohio, District 6. The photo is from the African American Small Picture Collection, SC 1495. The photographs were taken by staff of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a United States federal government project to fund written work and support writers during the Great Depression. On April 1, 1937, the FWP received formal approval and instructions to conduct interviews of surviving ex-slaves in Ohio. Most of the narratives were compiled in 1937 and 1938 and gathered from around the state. After the termination of the Federal Writer's Project, most narratives were transferred to the Writers' Unit of the Library of Congress. However, an additional twenty-eight narratives were discovered in the State Archives holdings. The collection contains a photo of three "very efficient members of the WPA group on project of The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1936-1937: B[sic.] Williams, Carl G. Beason, and Margaret Clark Oakfield". There are also portraits of male and female ex-slaves of Springfield, Ohio and Youngstown, Ohio; the backs of the photographs contain street addresses, county names and district numbers of each of the former slaves' residences.

Record Contributed By

Ohio History Connection

Record Harvested From

Ohio Digital Network