Lecture 3 1 FWP

Part I, Federal Writers’ Project (1930s)
Shannon Carter, PhD Spring 2011
Lecture, Week Three: Remixing Memories

Guiding Questions: Who are we? As Americans? As Texans? As a community?
Collectively? Individually? Who do we know ourselves to be? How have we changed
over time? How can we tell a people’s story through materials available in our formal
archives? Through materials we create and collect elsewhere? What does memory have to
do with it? What does technology have to do with it?
I. Federal Writers Project

The Federal Writers' Project was created in 1935 as part of the United States Work Progress
Administration to provide employment for historians, teachers, writers, librarians, and other white-collar
workers. Originally, the purpose of the project was to produce a series of sectional guide books under the
name American Guide, focusing on the scenic, historical, cultural, and economic resources of the United
States. Eventually new programs were developed and projects begun under the Federal Emergency Relief
Administration were absorbed by the Writers' Project. From its inception in 1935 through late 1939, the
Federal Writers' Project was directed by Henry Alsberg.(“New Deal Programs,” Library of Congress)
Henry Alsberg, Director, Federal Writers' Project from 1935-1939
In Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers’ Project (2003), Jerrold Hirsch writes:
Not only were American intellectuals in the 1930s trying to rediscover America, as so many
commentators then and since have pointed out; they were also trying to redefine it. The studies
published by the Writers’ Project tried to broaden the definition of who and what was American.
To answer such questions the FWP offered new materials: ex-slave narratives, folklore and folk
song, and the life histories of ordinary people. In the American Guide Series, which included
guidebooks to every state in the union and to numerous cities, counties, and geographic areas, the
FWP tried to provide the nation with a “road map for the cultural rediscovery of America.” (19)
Figure 1: Guides were created for every state in the nation and many cities as well.
Figure 2: The American Guide Series writers "describe America to Americans."

Figure 3: Researchers and writers for the Federal Writers Project traveled the country, collecting interviews
with former slaves like the gentleman above. In the 1930s, it would have been quite possible to speak with
individuals who had lived as slaves when children.
Figure 4: Oral histories collected were often accompanied by a photograph, then archived in the Library of
Congress where they remain available to us more than 70 years later. The slave above was photographed and
interviewed at his home in Dallas, Texas.
Figure 5: Stories collected from Americans everywhere, like this woman--posing in the doorway of the old
streetcar where she was now living with her family of four in North Carolina. A portion of her story can be
found in the Library of Congress (online).
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers Project, 1936-1940
Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html).
These life histories were compiled and transcribed by the staff of the Folklore Project of the
Federal Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration
(WPA) from 1936-1940. The Library of Congress collection includes 2,900 documents
representing the work of over 300 writers from 24 states. Typically 2,000-15,000 words in
length, the documents consist of drafts and revisions, varying in form from narrative to dialogue
to report to case history. The histories describe the informant's family education, income,
occupation, political views, religion and mores, medical needs, diet and miscellaneous
observations. Pseudonyms are often substituted for individuals and places named in the
narrative texts.
Figure 6: Films describing the WPA to New Deal contemporaries can be found in places like the Internet
Archives. View "We Work Again" at url below.
http://www.archive.org/details/we_work_again_1937
Figure 7: Films like "We Work Again" (above) were produced by the Federal Government and thus available
for remixing into your own projects, as sound, image, or film.
Figure 8: FWP writers brought the field research together into narratives (American Guide books), which
were made available across the country through individual purchases and via local libraries.
Figure 9: Some of the FWP writers became quite famous, including Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and
Richard Wright.
Figure 10: Ralph Ellison, also a writer for the FWP.

Figure 11: Richard Wright worked for FWP.

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Part I, Federal Writers’ Project (1930s)

Shannon Carter, PhD Spring 2011

Lecture, Week Three: Remixing Memories

I. Federal Writers Project

Henry Alsberg, Director, Federal Writers' Project from 1935-1939

Figure 2: The American Guide Series writers "describe America to Americans."

Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html).

Figure 10: Ralph Ellison, also a writer for the FWP.

Figure 11: Richard Wright worked for FWP.

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