Reference photos and sound clips

[vitamin_kitten]

If this is the wrong place to be posting t his, please let me know and I'll delete it or whatever.

I have a question regarding reference photos and sound clips. A character in a story I'm working on is a female ex Civil War era slave (vampire story, people living for long periods of time -- you know how it goes), and I'm trying to find good reference photos of female slaves from the time period. Most of the photographs from that time period are of male slaves, however, so it doesn't really give me much to go on as far as designing the physical aspects of the character (like what her hair would look like, since I'm pretty sure getting a weave was not the thing to do back then, or the types of dresses she would wear). I've found one image that I might be able to work with, but it's of poor quality. I know my best bet would be to get some books out of the library or something, but my schedule doesn't really allow for that right now.

I'm also in need of sound clips of accurate portrayals of the way slaves spoke during that time period, both towards one another, and towards the families that owned them. Any help in this area would be useful.

Again, if this isn't the place to ask this question, just let me know, and I'll get rid of it.

[Weiss]

This is the perfect place for such a post, actually. Since you're asking for references that will be used in writing, I can think of no better area to ask.

While I can't claim to know much about the slave era, I would imagine that slaves were largely male simply because they were considered physically dominant. That's not to say there weren't a plethora of females used for slave labor as well, but you might have trouble finding images appropriate for your needs. This idea is further supported by the fact that slave women were often used to serve as housemaids and wet nurses, rather than as field workers.

It might also be worth noting that Photography became possible in the 1820s, only a few decades prior to the Civil War. As such, it's not unlikely that the use of photography was limited and reserved for things that were considered greatly more important than slaves. While we may be able to walk around snapping photos at a whim today, the means of doing so prevented such frugal snapshotting in that era.

This picture seems to be a pretty good depiction of what their living conditions were like, as well as the types of clothes they might have worn. It isn't the greatest quality, but expecting anything better from a photo taken in the earliest age of photography is asking a bit much.

In the way of sound clips, and even to get a decent idea of how the slaves looked and acted, you may want to try looking up a movie on slavery through imdb or simply using Google and then searching for clips of those movies on YouTube or another streaming video site.

While looking up information at the library might be a more effective way of learning about the slavery era, it's also a tedious one. Hopefully my suggestions will help you avoid the necessity of doing so.

[vitamin_kitten]

Thanks so much for your help. Interestingly enough, the image you provided is actually one of the only ones I've been able to find that is suited to my needs. I realize I'm at a slight researching disadvantage due to the fact that photography was still just new during the time period. Your suggestion to use IMDB as a source was a good one though, and I'll definitely have to see what I can find through it.

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