Dear Mr. Bjorkman:

We have received more stories of ex-slaves and are gratified by the
quality and interest of the narratives. Some of these stories have been
accompanied by photographs of the subjects. We would like to have
portraits wherever they can be secured, but we urge your photographers
to make the studies as simple, natural, and "unposed" as possible. Let
the background, cabin or whatnot, be the normal setting--in short, just
the picture a visitor would expect to find by "dropping in" on one of
these old-timers.

Enclosed is a memorandum of Mr. Lomax with suggestions for simplifying
the spelling of certain recurring dialect words. This does not mean that
the interviews should be entirely in "straight English"--simply, that we
want them to be more readable to those uninitiated in the broadest Negro
speech.

Very truly yours,

George Cronyn
Associate Director
Federal Writers' Project

GWCronyn:MEB


This paragraph was added to the letter to Arkansas.

Mr. Lomax is very eager to get such records as you mention: Court