The view from the bottom rail

¶ … Art of Historical Detection by James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle. Specifically it will contain a book review of Chapter 8, "The View From the Bottom Rail." This book illustrates how historical research and detection is used in a variety of circumstances. This chapter looks at the liberation of the slaves during the Civil War, and uses personal experiences to illustrate what happened during this momentous time in history.

The authors note that uncovering the historical story of the freedman is difficult because often, histories deal with the "top rung" of society, rather than the "bottom rail" of the lower social classes, like the slaves, who were certainly at the bottom rung of the social ladder in the South. They note, "By and large, those on the top rails of society produce the best and more voluminous records. Having been privileged to receive an education, they are more apt to publish memoirs, keep diaries, or write letters" (Davidson and Lytle 172). They note that it is these top rails that most interest historians, because they represent what is perceived to be a more powerful, interesting, and relevant element of society.

Perspective is also a problem, because many of the written records about slavery and slave life came from whites, since slaves were not encouraged or even allowed to be educated in many cases. Telling the slaves' stories was difficult because the whites had a different perspective, and could not possible chronicle all the elements of slave life, or even understand them, so the written records that are available are sometimes subject to an altered perspective that does not accurately illustrate the real lives of the slaves, both before and after the Civil War. Many of these accounts are also prejudiced, and indicate the white's contempt of the slaves, rather than real accounts of the circumstances and situations facing the slaves and freedmen during and after the war.

One way to solve the problem was to write down black accounts of their lives, and some historians did do this to preserve the information for future generations. The authors continue, "They [abolitionists] took down the stories of fugitive slaves who had safely made their way North, and published the accounts" (Davidson and Lytle 178). However, interest in these stories waned, and it wasn't until the twentieth century that interest revived, and by that time, many blacks had already died, taking their experiences and insight to the grave with them. Interest picked up in the 20's when many black writers were popular, and interest in southern culture continued during the WPA artists' projects during the Depression, when oral histories began to gain in popularity. These oral histories make up nineteen volumes, and really helped preserve the history of the slaves and freedmen. Even this bulk, however, only represents a fraction of the four million slaves, however, and that indicates the great amount of lost material that can never be recovered.