America as 7,000 Writers Discovered During the Depression
By Tom Morrow
In 1935 at the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Project Administration created a new branch designed to provide writers, historians, teachers, librarians and other white-collar workers employment. The Federal Writers’ Project employed approximately 7,000 in the then-48 states, each earning $70 a month – a living wage in those days. Like a similar program for artists and sculptures, the writer’s project was an attempt at providing jobs.
From its inception in 1935 through late 1939, the Federal Writers’ Project was directed by Henry Alsberg. A former lawyer who became interested in the theater as a writer and as a director of off-Broadway productions. From its inception the guides were primarily put together using letters sent in by the writers, many of them not very good at putting words together..
Associates who also appear as project correspondents include Merle Colby, George Cronin, Joseph Gaer, Reed Harris, and Claire Laning. Among the folklorists represented are Benjamin Botkin and John A. Lomax. Poets and writers whose works appear in the records include, Nelson Algren, Sterling Brown, Jack Conroy, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright.
Alsberg directed each book be divided into a series of sections such as the natural setting, history, agriculture, industry, transportation, culture, education, religion, fine arts, media, etc. Each major city had a chapter of its own. About half of each book was devoted to a series of “tours” of the state.
Essayist Valerie Jean Kramer studied the various guide books, which are still available and cataloged in the Library of Congress. She wrote: “Each tour follows a particular road and describes what one sees traveling from one edge of the state to the other, giving explicit directions and mileages.”
But, Alsberg’s directive to write about the various attractions each state offered took a sharp turn. Writers, particularly in the South, found an America mostly hidden from “polite” society. It was an America many didn’t expect. It was a time where communication across the nation wasn’t instantons like today. There were newspapers for those who could read, regional radio, and movie newsreels. But much of what the writers found didn’t appear in any of those mediums. Many poor Americans outside of the Eastern cities with reliable transportation had never ventured more than 50 miles from their homes.
Writers began talking with various residents of the states where they lived. They wrote down those conversatons – family histories, personal recollections and activities they witness. Northern writers discovered America was divided into two countries – white and black. Those interviews or “life histories,” were sent in as letter, compiled and transcribed by the staff of the “folklore” section of the Writers’ Project. Today, the Library of Congress collection includes 2,900 documents representing the work of more than 300 writers from 24 states.
The more than 2,300 first-person accounts of those born in slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves were collected. The state with the most surprising discoveries was Florida, where the white sandy beaches filled with wealthy northerners gave way to black workers in the swamps. One old worker in the turpentine-producing swamp told the writer he had worked there 27 years. When asked he didn’t leave, he replied. “Every time I try to leave, they (bosses) find me and bring me back.”
Writers also discovered the Ku Klux Klan and the terror they rained down upon Black people. Western writers found Native American people no better off. Most of the various tribes had been decimated by the government forcing them to live in the White man’s culture. Children were taught English in schools and discouraged from speaking their own language. After two generations, their respective languages were lost. The interviews included veterans of the Little Big Horn, the Geronimo war and other campaigns. They told how, over time, the various treaties had been ignored or forgotten.
While this work was being accomplished, Republican naysayers in Washington, D.C. were declaring the Writer’s Project a waste of money. U.S. Representative Martin Dies Jr., R-Texas, who chaired the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), maintained from its inception the entire WPA program was filled with Communists and Nazi sympathizers.
The series was finally printed, with Idaho’s guide being the first released. The guide series immediately became best sellers. Many books in the project have been updated by private companies or republished without updating. World War II ended the project. Alaska and Hawaii were not U.S. states during the period and not covered by the project. Some of the guides are available on Amazon and other major booksellers and occasionally found in used book stores.
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