From 1936–1938, the WPA through the Federal Writers Project initiated a project to collect and publish oral histories of former slaves. Writers were sent throughout the South to interview former slaves, most of whom had been children before the Civil War. When the project was complete, Arkansas residents had contributed more oral slave histories (approximately 780) than any other state, although Arkansas' slave population was less than those of neighboring Deep South states. African-American residents of Pine Bluff/Jefferson County contributed more oral interviews of Arkansas-born slaves than any other city/county in the state. The city served to compile a valuable storehouse of oral slave narrative material.