Listen to lives told in their own words — some books still speak in the teller's own voice.
Editor's Picks
The Traveling Shoemaker
As told by Antanas Kaztauskis
A Lithuanian farm boy remembers the winter night a traveling shoemaker looked right through him and spoke the words that carried him across the sea. Recorded 1904.
Childhood & Home
The Best Shine for Ten Cents
As told by Rocco Corresca
An orphan raised by nuns near Naples, sent out to beg in the streets, crossed in steerage and built his own bootblack parlors in Brooklyn. Recorded 1902.
Work & Struggle
Henry Sees Me Home
As told by Sadie Frowne
Sadie Frowne, sixteen and orphaned, works a Brooklyn sweatshop and saves what she can. She dictated her own story — including the young man Henry, who wants to marry her. Recorded 1902.
Love & DevotionAll Memoirs
6 memoirsThe Traveling Shoemaker
As told by Antanas Kaztauskis
The Best Shine for Ten Cents
As told by Rocco Corresca
A Rose in Her Hair
By an Illinois farmer's wife
Bound Out
As told by a Georgia field hand
Henry Sees Me Home
As told by Sadie Frowne
As If a Fog Had Rolled Away
By an itinerant minister