Freedmen and Southern Society Project

FAIN: RQ-50402-09

University of Maryland, College Park (College Park, MD 20742-5141)
Leslie S. Rowland (Project Director: November 2008 to April 2012)

Preparation of volumes 6 and 7 of a documentary history of the transition from slavery to freedom in the American South, spanning the period of 1861-1867.

The Freedmen and Southern Society Project is editing FREEDOM: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION, 1861-1867, a nine-volume documentary history of the transition from slavery to freedom in the U.S. South. The edition documents a critical juncture in American history: the moment when four million slaves gained their freedom. It constitutes a social history in the words of emancipated slaves and their contemporaries. Five of the nine volumes are in print; each is between 800 and 1,073 pages in length, considerably larger than the volumes in most editions. Editorial work on the sixth volume is well advanced, and preliminary selection of documents for the seventh has begun. In addition, the editors have prepared four shorter volumes for general audiences and use in the classroom, as well as eleven article-length collections of documents. The project's web site also provides both documents and interpretive material; it has been designated one of the best sites for humanities education.