The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

(WPA), a New Deal program. It was one of a group of New Deal arts programs known collectively as

Federal Project Number One Federal Project Number One, also referred to as Federal One, is the collective name for a group of projects under the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program in the United States. Of the $4.88 billion allocated by the Emergency Relief ...

or Federal One. The FWP employed thousands of people and produced hundreds of publications, including state guides, city guides, local histories, oral histories, ethnographies, and children's books. In addition to writers, the project provided jobs to unemployed librarians, clerks, researchers, editors, and historians.

Background

Funded under the

Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 The Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 was passed on April 8, 1935, as a part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. It was a large public works program that included the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Public Works Administration (PWA), ...

, the FWP was established July 27, 1935, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Henry Alsberg Henry Garfield Alsberg (September 21, 1881November 1, 1970) was an American journalist and writer who served as the founding director of the Federal Writers' Project. A lawyer by training, he was a foreign correspondent during the Russian Rev ...

, a journalist, playwright, theatrical producer, and human-rights activist, directed the program from 1935 to 1939. In 1939, Alsberg was fired, federal funding was cut, and the project fell under state sponsorship led by John D. Newsom. The FWP ended completely in 1943. An estimated 10,000 people found employment in the FWP. The project set out not only to provide work relief for unemployed writers, but also to create a unique "self-portrait of America" through publication of guidebooks. From 1935 to 1943, the project cost about $27,000,000 – 0.002% of all WPA appropriations.

American Guide Series and other publications

The ''American Guide'' Series, the most well-known of the FWP's publications, consisted of guides to the then 48 states, as well as the Alaska Territory, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC. The books were written and compiled by writers from individual states and territories, and edited by Alsberg and his staff in Washington, DC. The format was generally uniform, and each guide included detailed histories of the state or territory, with descriptions of every city and town, automobile travel routes, photographs, maps, and chapters on natural resources, culture, and geography. The inclusion of essays about the various cultures of people living in the states, including immigrants and African Americans, was unprecedented. City books, such as ''The New York City Guide'', were also published as part of the series. Some full-length books are available online at the Internet Archive. The FWP also published another series, ''Life In America'', and numerous individual titles. Many FWP books were bestsellers, including ''American Hurricane'', a rapidly produced volume about the devastation wreaked by the

1938 New England hurricane The 1938 New England Hurricane (also referred to as the Great New England Hurricane and the Long Island Express Hurricane) was one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to strike Long Island, New York, and New England. The storm ...

. Others, such as ''Cape Cod Pilot'', written by author Josef Berger using the pseudonym Jeremiah Digges, received critical acclaim. In each state, a Writers' Project non-relief staff of editors was formed, along with a much larger group of field workers drawn from local unemployment rolls. The people hired came from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from former newspaper workers to white-collar and blue-collar workers without writing or editing experience.

Ancillary projects

Notable projects of the FWP included the Slave Narrative Collection, a set of interviews that culminated in over 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. Many of these narratives are available online from the above-named collection at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

website. Folklorist

Benjamin A. Botkin Benjamin Albert Botkin (February 7, 1901 – July 30, 1975) was an American folklorist and scholar. Early life Botkin was born on February 7, 1901, in East Boston, Massachusetts, to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. He attended the English High Schoo ...

was instrumental in insuring the survival of these manuscripts. Among the researchers and authors who have used this collection are

Colson Whitehead Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead (born November 6, 1969) is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work '' The Intuitionist''; '' The Underground Railroad'' (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Awar ...

for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, '' The Underground Railroad''. Other programs that emerged from Alsberg's desire to create an inclusive "self-portrait of America" were the Life History and Folklore projects. These consisted of first-person narratives and interviews (collected and conducted by FWP workers), which represented people of various ethnicities, regions, and occupations. According to the Library of Congress website, ''American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1940'', the documents "chronicle vivid life stories of Americans who lived at the turn of the century and include tales of meeting Billy the Kid, surviving the 1871 Chicago fire, pioneer journeys out West, grueling factory work, and the immigrant experience. Writers hired by this Depression-era work project included

Ralph Ellison Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel '' Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collec ...

Nelson Algren Nelson Algren (born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham; March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. His 1949 novel ''The Man with the Golden Arm'' won the National Book Award and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name. Algren articulated ...

May Swenson Anna Thilda May "May" Swenson (May 28, 1913 – December 4, 1989) was an American poet and playwright. Harold Bloom considered her one of the most important and original poets of the 20th century. The first child of Margaret and Dan Arthur Sw ...

, and many others." The Illinois Writers' Project, represented one of the few racially integrated project sites. The

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

project employed Arna Bontemps, an established voice of the Harlem Renaissance, and helped to launch the literary careers of African-American writers such as Richard Wright,

Margaret Walker Margaret Walker (Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander by marriage; July 7, 1915 – November 30, 1998) was an American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance. H ...

Katherine Dunham Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 – May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for ...

, and

Frank Yerby Frank Garvin Yerby ( – ) was an American writer, best known for his 1946 historical novel ''The Foxes of Harrow''. Early life Yerby was born in Augusta, Georgia, on September 5, 1916, the second of four children of Rufus Garvin Yerby (1886– ...

. The Virginia Negro Studies Project employed 16 African American writers and culminated in the publication of ''The Negro in Virginia'' (1940). Notably, it included photographs by Robert McNeill, now remembered as a groundbreaking African American photographer. The unpublished works of African American writer Zora Neale Hurston, who was employed by the Florida Writers' Project, was compiled years after her death in ''Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers' Project''. A short lived project of the FWP was the America Eats project, which was a proposed book of the regional foodways of the United States. Each state was tasked with gathering information about foods and food-related events unique to their area, and subsequently preparing essays. The country was divided into five regions: the Northeast, the South, the Middle West, the Far West, and the Southwest. While materials, in various quantities, were gathered from all five regions, the book ''America Eats!'' was never completed and published due to the entry of the United States into World War II and the subsequent loss of funding for the FWP and its projects. Materials from the America Eats project are held in various archives and libraries around the country, including at the Library of Congress and the

Montana State University Archives and Special Collections The Montana State University Archives and Special Collections, also known as the Merrill G. Burlingame Archives and Special Collections, is located in Bozeman, Montana. The archives is on the second floor of the Renne Library on the Montana State U ...

. A large digital archive called What America Ate has been created to house the digitized remains of the project.

Controversies

For most of its lifetime, the FWP faced a barrage of criticism from conservatives. When ''Massachusetts: A Guide to its Places and People'', was published, it was lauded by government officials, including Governor

Charles F. Hurley Charles Francis Hurley (November 24, 1893 – March 24, 1946) was an American attorney and the 54th Governor of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and one of its first Irish-American governors. Early years Charles Francis Hurley was born in Cambr ...

, but the day after its publication, "conservatives attacked the book over its essays on the

1912 Lawrence textile strike The Lawrence Textile Strike, also known as the Bread and Roses Strike, was a strike of immigrant workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912 led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Prompted by a two-hour pay cut corresponding to a ne ...

and other labor issues. Even more sacrilegious to these critics was the coverage of the

Sacco and Vanzetti Nicola Sacco (; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a ...

affair." Scholars called the questionable passages "fair accounts"; ironically, the controversy helped increase book sales. The most poisonous attacks against the FWP came from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and its chair, media-savvy Congressman

Martin Dies Jr. Martin Dies Jr. (November 5, 1900 – November 14, 1972), also known as Martin Dies Sr., was a Texas politician and a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. He was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-second and after ...

of Texas. Alsberg and

Hallie Flanagan Hallie Flanagan Davis (August 27, 1889 in Redfield, South Dakota – June 23, 1969 in Old Tappan, New Jersey) was an American theatrical producer and director, playwright, and author, best known as director of the Federal Theatre Project, a pa ...

, his counterpart at the Federal Theatre Project, faced tremendous scrutiny from the committee. The Dies HUAC committee, like the McCarthy committee of the 1950s, "used inquisitorial scare tactics, innuendo, and unsupported accusations." Alsberg, Flanagan, and others who were accused of supporting the communist agenda could not "examine evidence against them, could not produce their own witnesses, could not cross-examine accusers." Accusations that communist activities were carried out openly, and that Soviets funded labor unions, which then took control of the arts' projects, were found to be false. Future Guggenheim scholar and author Richard Wright was often under attack, with his writings pronounced as "vile." Among the many charges leveled against the FWP and its members, was that Richard Wright was not born in the United States. (He was born in Mississippi.) Alsberg wrote a long court brief and provided supporting documents to refute each charge. Support for the FWP came from

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

, as well as mainstream publishing companies such as

Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquir ...

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, and

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

, which produced some of the books. By 1939, HUAC's tactics seemed to work, and the newly-elected Congress cut the WPA budget while increasing HUAC's funding. In January 1939, 6,000 people were laid off from Federal One. By July 1939, Congress voted to eliminate the Theatre Project. Federal sponsorship for the Federal Writers' Project came to an end in 1939, although the program was permitted to continue under state sponsorship, with some federal employees, until 1943. In the last months of the FWP's existence, Henry Alsberg was fired. He continued to work past his firing date to meet contractual arrangements with the publishers of three upcoming ''American Guide'' books. By the time of his departure in 1939, the FWP had published 321 publications; hundreds more remained in various stages of publications. Some were published in the years leading up to 1943 under the renamed Writers' Program. Others were never completed. Over the lifetime of the FWP and the Writers' Program, 10,000 people were estimated to be employed. In the 1937 musical ''

The Cradle Will Rock ''The Cradle Will Rock'' is a 1937 play in music by Marc Blitzstein. Originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project, it was directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman. A Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed, it ...

'', funded by the Federal Theater Project, composer Marc Blitzstein incorporated into the work the efforts to prevent its production.

Film

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

-funded documentary about the FWP titled '' Soul of a People: Writing America's Story'' premiered on the

Smithsonian Channel The Smithsonian Channel is an American pay television channel owned by Paramount Global through its media networks division under MTV Entertainment Group. It offers video content inspired by the Smithsonian Institution's museums, research facili ...

in September 2009. The film includes interviews with American authors Studs Terkel and

Stetson Kennedy William Stetson Kennedy (October 5, 1916 – August 27, 2011) was an American author, folklorist and human rights activist. One of the pioneer folklore collectors during the first half of the 20th century, he is remembered for having infiltrated t ...

, and American historian Douglas Brinkley. The companion book was published by

Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...

as ''Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America''. The Slave Narrative Collection featured in the HBO documentary, '' Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives'' and includes Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson performing dramatic readings of the transcripts. The 1999 film ''

Cradle Will Rock ''Cradle Will Rock'' is a 1999 American historical drama film written, produced and directed by Tim Robbins. The story fictionalizes the true events that surrounded the development of the 1937 musical ''The Cradle Will Rock'' by Marc Blitzstein; ...

'', by Tim Robbins, while depicting the events of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), dramatizes the attacks against Federal One (via the HUAC), which helped shutter both the FTP and the FWP.

Proposal for a new Federal Writers' Project

In the wake of the 2020

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

and consequent global economic disruption, several writers and politicians called for a new U.S. Federal Writers’ Project. In May 2021, on the anniversary of the original project, Congressman

Ted Lieu Ted W. Lieu (; born March 29, 1969) is an American politician and Air Force Reserve Command colonel who has represented California's 33rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2015. The district includes much of wes ...

and Congresswoman

Teresa Leger Fernandez Teresa Isabel Leger Fernandez ( ; born July 1, 1959) is an American attorney and politician representing New Mexico's 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. Early life and education Leger Fernandez was born ...

introduced legislation to create a new FWP, administered by the

Department of Labor The Ministry of Labour ('' UK''), or Labor ('' US''), also known as the Department of Labour, or Labor, is a government department responsible for setting labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, training, a ...

, that would hire unemployed and underemployed writers. Supporters of the legislation included

James Fallows James Mackenzie Fallows (born August 2, 1949) is an American writer and journalist. He is a former national correspondent for ''The Atlantic.'' His work has also appeared in '' Slate'', ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''The New York Review of Boo ...

, Ruth Dickey, and Jonathan Lethem.

Notable participants

Conrad Aiken Conrad Potter Aiken (August 5, 1889 – August 17, 1973) was an American writer and poet, honored with a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and was United States Poet Laureate from 1950 to 1952. His published works include poetry, short ...

William Attaway William Alexander Attaway (November 19, 1911 – June 17, 1986) was an African-American novelist, short story writer, essayist, songwriter, playwright, and screenwriter. Biography Early life Attaway was born on November 19, 1911, in Greenvil ...

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only w ...

* Benjamin Botkin * Max Bodenheim * John Cheever *

Richard Durham Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...

* Arnold S. Eagle *

Loren Eiseley Loren Eiseley (September 3, 1907 – July 9, 1977) was an American anthropologist, educator, philosopher, and natural science writer, who taught and published books from the 1950s through the 1970s. He received many honorary degrees and was ...

* Eliot Elisofon *

Vardis Fisher Vardis Alvero Fisher (March 31, 1895 – July 9, 1968) was an American writer from Idaho who wrote popular historical novels of the Old West. After studying at the University of Utah and the University of Chicago, Fisher taught English at the Uni ...

* Irving Fishman *

Robert Hayden Robert Hayden (August 4, 1913February 25, 1980) was an American poet, essayist, and educator. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as US Poet Laureate. He was the first African-Ameri ...

* Leon Srabian Herald * Zora Neale Hurston *

Weldon Kees Harry Weldon Kees (February 24, 1914 – disappeared July 18, 1955) was an American poet, painter, literary critic, novelist, playwright, jazz pianist, short story writer, and filmmaker. Despite his brief career, Kees is considered an importa ...

* Claude McKay * Vincent McHugh *

Harry Partch Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century com ...

Kenneth Patchen Kenneth Patchen (December 13, 1911January 8, 1972) was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of Will ...

* Kenneth Rexroth *

* Studs Terkel * Jim Thompson *

* Dorothy West * Walker Winslow * Richard Wright *

Anzia Yezierska Anzia Yezierska (October 29, 1880 – November 20, 1970) was a Jewish-American novelist born in Mały Płock, Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. She emigrated as a child with her parents to the United States and lived in the ...

Gallery

File:Federal Writers' Project Presentation.jpg, Display for ''Who's Who in the Zoo'', part of the Children's Science Series created by authors in the Federal Writers Project File:A guide to the golden state from the past to the present LCCN98516742.jpg, Federal Writers' Project of California poster advertising the American Guide Series volume on California, 1936–41 File:Federal Writers Project exhibit at Ohio State Fair.png, A book exhibit at the Ohio State Fair for the Federal Writers Project in 1937 File:The book of stones,compiled and written by the Federal writers' project, Work projects administration, commonwealth of Pennsylvania... (IA bookofstonescomp00fede).pdf, ''The Book of Stones'', part of the children's science series created by the Federal Writers Project and published in Pennsylvania in 1939 File:Federal Writers Project USE 1.jpg, North Carolina oral history project by the Federal Writers Project, documenting child laborers at a local mill in Lincolnton File:Collection of maps relating to publication of "New Hampshire, a guide to the Granite State" by Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of New Hampshire LOC 2008624019-10.tif, A map of the town of Portsmouth for ''New Hampshire: A Guide to the Granite State'' by Federal Writers' Project, 1927. File:Photograph, California no. 8, Oakland May 23, 1940, Writers Project, and centers for other P & S projects.... - NARA - 296093.jpg, A photo of a California Federal Writers' Project location within a Works Progress Administration building in Oakland, 1940 File:Moments-with-Genius-Poster.jpg, Poster for the Illinois Writers Project radio series ''Moments with Genius'', presented by the Museum of Science and Industry (''circa'' 1939)

References

External links

Overview

U.S. Senate: The American Guide Series (.pdf)
Bibliographic overview of the guides.
U.S. Works Projects Administration (American Guide Series)
eBooks: 20th-Century US History: Federal Writers' Project Books (mostly Travel). Links to over 100 free full-text guides.

Specific projects

Exhibit by the Library of Congress of recordings, documents, and essays by the Federal Writer's Project for Florida FolklifeThe Living New Deal.The Negro in Virginia
Library of Congress: American Life Histories

Lincoln Libraries
Nebraska: A Guide to the Cornhusker State
(1939) Online full-text PDF edition. (Access restricted.)
Almanac for New Yorkers, 1938

Full hypertext of the WPA guide to Virginia with maps, tours, and critical essays on Virginia and the WPA in the Depression

* ttps://www.floridamemory.com/photographiccollection/photo_exhibits/wpa/ 1939 Federal Writer's Project: Exhibit on the Conchs of Florida Online version, State Archives of Florida * Powell, Lawrence N.
Lyle Saxon and the ''WPA Guide to New Orleans''
" ''Southern Spaces'' 29 July 2009.

Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture *
Florida Negro Papers
at th
University of South Florida
(9 boxes, not digitized) * Th
Marcus Christian Collection
in th
Louisiana Digital Library

* ttps://archive.org/details/neworleanscity00writmiss ''New Orleans City Guide''(1938) at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Guide to the Federal Writers' Project Kentucky: A Guide to the Bluegrass manuscript, 1939
housed at the University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center *What America Ate, housed digitally b
Michigan State University
*WPA Collection a
Montana State University Archives and Special Collections
{{Authority control New Deal projects of the arts New Deal agencies Works Progress Administration American writers' organizations Arts organizations established in 1935 1935 establishments in the United States Oral history Federal Writers' Project