More reaction to my review of "The Help"

Dear Jim:

Thanks for sharing your review with me. What you wrote makes me and
Cathy even more eager to see _The Help_.

Speaking of oral histories bearing on race and the South, one of the
most important sources on slavery is the hundreds of interviews WPA workers
conducted with former slaves in the 1930s. Historians have noticed
something interesting in these interviews. If the interviewer was white,
the interviewee -- no doubt fearing retaliation -- downplayed the evils of
slavery and talked a lot about the kindness of the "ole massa an' missus."
If the interviewer was black, however, interviewees were much more candid.
We have a few interviews conduct with the same survivors by both blacks and
whites, and the difference between the two is night and day.

***

I hope your school year gets off to a great start.

____________________


Gregory J. W. Urwin

Professor of History, Temple University
Vice President, Society for Military History
General Editor, Campaigns and Commanders, University of Oklahoma Press
2011 Earhart Foundation Fellow on American History, William L. Clements
Library, University of Michigan
2011 Tyree Lamb Fellow, Society of the Cincinnati
Academic Fellow, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Fellow, Company of Military Historians