Federal Writers' Project

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The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a United States federal government project to fund written work and support writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Projects Administration, a New Deal program. It was one of four New Deal arts programs known collectively as Federal One.

Contents 1 Background 2 Famous FWP participants 3 Titles in the American Guide Series 3.1 Cities 3.2 States 3.3 Regions and territories, etc. 4 Further reading 5 External links

[edit] Background

Established in July 27 1935, the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) operated under journalist and theatrical producer Henry Alsberg, and later John D. Newsome, compiling local histories, oral histories, ethnographies, children's books and other works. The most well-known of these publications were the 48 state guides to America (plus Alaska Territory, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.) known as the American Guide Series. The American Guide Series books were compiled by the FWP, but printed by the individual states, and contained detailed histories of each state with descriptions of every city and town. The format was uniform, comprising essays on the state's history and culture, descriptions of its major cities, automobile tours of important attractions, and a portfolio of photographs.

FWP was particularly charged with employing writers, editors, historians, researchers, art critics, archaeologists, geologists and cartographers. Some 6,600 individuals were employed by the FWP. In each state a Writer's Project non-relief staff of editors was formed, along with a much larger group of field workers drawn from local unemployement rolls. Many of these had never graduated high school, but most had formerly held white collar jobs of some sort. Most of the Writer's Project employees were relatively young in age, and many came from working-class backgrounds.

Not surprisingly, many FWP writers supported both the labor movement and left-wing social and political themes. A few were overt Marxists or Communists. At the time, the rise of fascism, the emerging labor movement, and opposition to Roosevelt administration policies by conservative critics seemed to many WPA artists as a time to take a stand. Most Writer's Project works were apolitical by their nature, but some histories and ethnographies consciously or unconsciously chose to influence current political and social debates through their writing. Some of these projects were strongly opposed by some state legislatures, particularly the American Guide Series books, and in a few states Guide printings were kept to a minimal number of copies.

Among the thousands who worked on the project were Conrad Aiken, Nelson Algren, Nathan Asch, Arna Bontemps, John Cheever, Kenneth Rexroth, Studs Terkel, and Richard Wright. Blakey (2005) estimates that at any one time the Indiana office had fewer than 150 men and women on the payroll. Fieldworkers made about eighty dollars a month, working twenty to thirty hours a week. A majority were women. Very few African Americans worked for any state project. As Blakey notes, "there were very few on the relief rolls who claimed literary expertise in the 1930s, so the FWP had few to choose from" (Blakey p. 42).

The overriding goal of the FWP was simply employment, but the project produced useful work in the many oral histories collected from residents throughout the United States, many from regions that had previously gone unexplored and unrecorded. The FWP also produced the American Guide Series volumes for each state, though these were less successful (due mostly to small printing runs and limited circulation).

Federal sponsorship for the Federal Writers' Project came to an end in 1939, though the program was permitted to continue under state sponsorship until 1943.

[edit] Famous FWP participants

• Conrad Aiken
• Nelson Algren
• Saul Bellow
• Max Bodenheim
• John Cheever
• Loren Eiseley
• Ralph Ellison
• Vardis Fisher
• Zora Neale Hurston
• Weldon Kees
• Claude McKay
• May Swenson
• Richard Wright
• Frank Yerby

[edit] Titles in the American Guide Series

[edit] Cities

• Erie[, Pennsylvania]; a guide to the city and county, 1938.
• Houston, a history and guide, 1942 [Houston, TX]
• Lincoln City Guide, 1937. [Lincoln, NE]
• Los Angeles: A Guide to the City and Its Environs, 1941
• New Orleans City Guide, 1938.
• The New York City Guide: A Comprehensive Guide to the Five Boroughs of the Metropolis—Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Richmond, 1939.
• Santa Barbara: A Guide to the Channel City and its Environs, 1941.
• The WPA Guide to Cincinnati: A Guide to the Queen City and Its Neighbors, 1943.

[edit] States

• Alabama: A Guide to the Deep South, 1941.
• Arizona: A State Guide, 1940.
• Arkansas: A Guide to the State, Arizona, 1941.
• California: A Guide to the Golden State, 1939.
• Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State, 1941.
• Connecticut: A Guide to Its Roads, Lore, and People, 1938.
• Delaware: A Guide to the First State, 1938.
• Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State, 1939.
• Georgia: A Guide to Its Towns and Countryside, 1940.
• Idaho: A Guide to Word and Picture, 1937.
• Illinois: A Descriptive and Historical Guide, 1939.
• Indiana: A Guide to the Hoosier State, 1941.
• Iowa: A Guide to the Hawkeye State, 1938.
• Kansas: A Guide to the Sunflower State, 1939.
• Kentucky: A Guide to the Bluegrass State, 1939.
• Louisiana: A Guide to the State, 1941.
• Maine: A Guide 'Down East' , 1937.
• Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State, 1940.
• Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People, 1937.
• Michigan: A Guide to the Wolverine State, 1941.
• Minnesota: A State Guide, 1938.
• Mississippi: A Guide to the Magnolia State, 1938.
• Missouri: A Guide to the 'Show Me' State, 1941.
• Montana: A State Guide Book, 1939.
• Nebraska: A Guide to the Cornhusker State, 1939.
• Nevada: A Guide to the Silver State, 1940.
• New Hampshire: A Guide to the Granite State, 1938.
• New Jersey: A Guide to Its Present and Past, 1939.
• New Mexico: A Guide to the Colorful State, 1940.
• New York: A Guide to the Empire State, 1940.
• North Carolina: A Guide to the Old North State, 1939.
• North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State, 1938.
• The Ohio Guide, 1940.
• Oklahoma: A Guide to the Sooner State, 1941
• Oregon: The End of the Trail, 1940.
• Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State, 1940.
• Rhode Island: A Guide to the Smallest State, 1937.
• South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto State, 1941.
• A South Dakota Guide, 1938.
• Tennessee: A Guide to the State, 1939.
• Texas: A Guide to the Lone Star State, 1940.
• Utah: A Guide to the State, 1941.
• Vermont: A Guide to the Green Mountain State, 1937.
• Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion, 1940.
• Washington, City and Capital, 1937
• Washington: A Guide to the Evergreen State, 1941.
• West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State, 1941.
• Wisconsin: A Guide to the Badger State, 1941.
• Wyoming: A Guide to Its History, Highways and People, 1941.

[edit] Regions and territories, etc.

• A Guide to Alaska: Last American Frontier, 1939.
• Death Valley: A Guide, 1939.
• Puerto Rico: A Guide to the Island of Boriquen, 1940.
• Here's New England! A Guide to Vacationland, 1939
• Monterey Peninsula, 1941.
• New York Panorama, 1938.
• The WPA Guide to the Minnesota Arrowhead Country, 1941.
• Cape Cod Pilot: A Loquacious Guide, 1937.

[edit] Further reading

• Blakey, George T. Creating a Hoosier Self-Portrait: The Federal Writers' Project in Indiana, 1935-1942 Indiana University Press, 2005.
• Brewer, Jeutonne P., The Federal Writers' Project: a bibliography, Metuchen, NH: Scarecrow Press, 1994.
• Fleischhauer, Carl, and Beverly W. Brannan, eds., Documenting America, 1935-1943, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
• Hirsch, Jerrold. Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers' Project (2003)
• Mangione, Jerre, The dream and the deal: the Federal Writers' Project, 1935-1943, Boston: Little, Brown, 1972.
• Meltzer, Milton, Violins & shovels: the WPA arts projects, New York: Delacorte Press, 1976.
• Penkower, Monty Noam, The Federal Writers' Project: A Study in Government Patronage of the Arts, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1977.

[edit] External links

• Federal Writer's Project by Petra Schindler-Carter
• New Deal Network: The Great Depression, the 1930s, and the Roosevelt Administration
• LOC: American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940
• senate.gov: The American Guide Series (.pdf)

Works Progress Administration
Federal One
Federal Writers' Project | Historical Records Survey Federal Theatre Project | Federal Art Project | Federal Music Project