Far More Terrible For Women (Personal Accounts of Women in Slavery) edited by Patrick Minges

Firsthand accounts of female slaves are few. The best-known narratives of slavery are those of Frederick Douglass and other men. What we know of the lives of female slaves comes mainly from the fiction of authors like Toni Morrison and movies like Gone With The Wind.

Far More Terrible For Women seeks to broaden the discussion by presenting 27 narratives of female ex-slaves. Editor Patrick Minges combed the WPA interviews of the 1930s for those of women, selecting a range of stories that give a taste of the unique challenges, complexities, and cruelties that were the lot of females under the "peculiar institution."

Patrick Minges worked for 17 years for Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. He holds a doctorate from Union Theological Seminary and currently teaches at Davidson Early College High School in Lexington, North Carolina.