"I never talk to nobody 'bout this" was the response of one aged African American when asked by a Works Project Administration field worker to share memories of his life in slavery and after emancipation. He and other ex-slaves were uncomfortable with the memories of a time when black and white lives were interwoven through human bondage. Yet the WPA field workers overcame the old people's reticence, and American West scholars T. Lindsay Baker and Julie P. Baker have collected all the known WPA Oklahoma "slave narratives" in this volume for the first time - including fourteen never published before. Their careful editorial notes detail what is known about the interviewers and the process of preparing the narratives.

The life of a cowboy was hardly glamorous. Poorly fed, underpaid, overworked, deprived of sleep, and prone to boredom and loneliness, cowboys choked in the dust, were cold at night, and suffered broken bones in falls and spills from horses. African American cowboys, however, also had to survive discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice. From scattered courthouse records, writings, and interviews with a few of the African American cowhands who were part of the history of Texas, Sara R. Massey and a host of writers have retrieved the little known stories of some of these cowboys. Among the stories in Black Cowboys of Texas, are those of Peter Martin, a freight hauler who assisted in a rebellion against the Mexican government: Bose Ikard, who went on the cattle drive that opened the Goodnight-Loving Trail; and Johanna July, a Black Seminole woman who trained horses for U.S. soldiers.

An interdisciplinary quarterly.

Gale has launched another new project--Genealogical Sourcebook series--and the first volumes look promising. The remaining volumes on Asian Americans and Native Americans will be published this summer. Libraries can order all four volumes for $239 (0-8103-8541-4). Part 1 of each volume consists of informative essays on immigration and migration, basic genealogical methods and resources, and problems specific to ethnic genealogy--such as naming practices, the reuse of graves where families could not afford perpetual sites, and reasons for deliberate falsification of records. Explanations and tips on accessing records specific to these groups, such as those of the Freedmen's Bureau and the Inquisition, records of religious orders, and an overview of newspaper ads and Hispanic heraldry are instructive and pragmatic. Tables, examples, and an extensive bibliography are included. Part 2, 'Directory of Genealogical Information, ' lists libraries and archives, public and private organizations, print resources, and other media that 'hold materials relevant to genealogists whether their focus is on genealogy in general or on a specific ethnic group.' Libraries and archives are listed geographically; those outside the U.S. are in Canada for African Americans, and in Guatemala, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Canada for Hispanic Americans. There are surprisingly few listings for Florida, which has a substantial Hispanic population. Private and public organizations include commercial ventures (publishers, researchers for a fee, bookstores) and nonprofits (genealogical societies, the American Antiquarian Society, etc.). The section entitled 'Print Resources' lists many sources from the 1980s, but there are also current publications. The author and title-organization indexes access only the products and sources listed in part 2. The subject index accesses the essays in part 1. Libraries that hold books such as George R. Ryskamp's Tracing Your Hispanic Heritage (1984) will want to keep them for their scholarly thoroughness. They will want to add these new books for their relative currency and for their simpler explanations of complicated facets of black and Hispanic culture.--BL 05/15/1995.