Federal Writers' Project

The Federal Writers ' Project was a job creation scheme of the American government during the New Deal, were brought to the unemployed intellectuals for the public again on the payroll. The project was the Department of Federal One of the Federal Works Progress Administration assumed and ran from 1935 to 1943 when the subsidies have already been set in 1939.

Tasks

The activities listed in the FWP academics - including writers, historians, geographers, anthropologists and photographers over the years a total of more than 6,600 people - were entrusted with the task of documenting the history and culture of the American nation for posterity. With federal editors they created first, the now famous American Guide Series, Guide for each of the then 48 U.S. states, in addition to the territories of Alaska and Puerto Rico, also monographs on individual cities. Each of the State Guides contained an outline of the history of the federal State, detailed descriptions of its cities and sights, essays about their culture, economy and politics and photo galleries.

Of particular interest are the numerous guided in field research interviews, which constitute a valuable source of folklore and social history of the United States and leading the way for the development of oral history have been as a method of historical science. So led employees of the FWP in the south of the country, interviews with some of the last surviving former slaves.

Many well-known writers were involved in the projects of the FWP, including about Conrad Aiken, Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Kenneth Rexroth, John Steinbeck, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright and Anzia Yezierska.

Publications

As part of the American Guide Series following volumes created:

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, Revised 1954..
  • 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 Iceland: 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.

Outer territories and within American landscapes

  • A Guide to Alaska: Last American Frontier, 1939.
  • Death Valley: A Guide, 1939.
  • Puerto Rico: A Guide to the Iceland 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.

Cities

  • Erie; a guide to the city and county, 1938.
  • Houston, a history and guide for 1942.
  • Lincoln City Guide, 1937.
  • 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 City and its Environs Channel, 1941.
  • The WPA Guide to Cincinnati: A Guide to the Queen City and Its Neighbors, 1943.

Secondary literature

  • Jeutonne P. Brewer: The Federal Writers ' Project: a bibliography. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NH 1994.
  • Carl Fleischhauer and Beverly W. Brannan (Ed.): Documenting America, 1935-1943. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988.
  • Jerrold Hirsch: Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers ' Project, 2003.
  • Jerre Mangione: The dream and the deal: the Federal Writers ' Project, 1935-1943. Little, Brown, Boston 1972.
  • Milton Meltzer: Violins & shovels: the WPA arts projects. Delacorte Press, New York 1976.
  • Monty Noam Penkower: The Federal Writers ' Project: A Study in Government Patronage of the Arts. University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1977.
Field work WorldCat
328904
de