WPA Post #4 - The Writers' Project

I've chosen to take a deep dive into each branch of Federal Project Number One (love that name! :-)) for a couple of reasons. One of them is that I'm hoping we can have some robust conversations about art, government, commerce, the nature of the relationships between them, how we as a society decide what is worthwhile and deserving of support, and perhaps even what thriving local art scenes looked like before television, the internet, and the availability of cheap air travel (something that will have to go away very soon). The main reason is that by looking closely at every aspect of Federal Project Number One, we see that the Roosevelt Administration understood that art and culture are not incidental, but intrinsic to a healthy society. They permeate every aspect of life. A thriving community is infused with art. Art promotes critical thinking and dialogue, raises morale and engenders connectedness, and creates millions of jobs in a myriad of fields with a multitude of skill sets. As of late we have forgotten that. Over the last forty years, government at every level has become indifferent, if not outright hostile to art. My hope is that as we fight for big structural change, perhaps art can play a large role in the struggle, and have a prominent role in American life once again.

With that in mind, I'd like to take a look at the Federal Writers' Project.  The FWP was incredibly ambitious. W. H. Auden called it “one of the noblest and most absurd undertakings ever attempted by a state.” In addition to giving work to writers, librarians, researchers, editors, historians, archeologists, and others, the director, Henry Alsberg, imagined it as a project to create a “self-portrait of America.”

The main product of the FWP was the American Guide Series. This was a collection of books covering every state, several territories, many cities, and other geographical locations. To call them tour guides would be to sell them hopelessly short. They were stunning works of literature beautifully written and designed.  Along with Auden, other contributors were John Cheever, Conrad Aiken, Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, Arna Bontemps, Malcolm Cowley, Edward Dahlberg, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Kenneth Patchen, Philip Rahv, Kenneth Rexroth, Harold Rosenberg, Studs Terkel, Margaret Walker, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty and many others. In addition to place descriptions and tours, they contained essays, folklore, songs, recipes, cultural portraits, and random strange anecdotes. Some of these pieces, such as a chapter about racial discrimination in the D.C. guide, as well as sections in the book about Massachusetts regarding labor issues and the Sacco and Vanzetti affair, were highly criticized by Congressional conservatives.

In addition to the Guide Series, there were other projects, such as the Folklore and Life Histories projects. These consisted of interviews and narratives collected by the FWP writers regarding such things as firsthand accounts historical events, cultural and ethnic histories, and occupational narratives.

One of the most famous programs of the Writers’ Project was the Slave Narrative Collection. There are over 2300 firsthand accounts of slavery in this collection. These are obviously complicated by such factors as the race and motives of the interviewer, the circumstances of the person being interviewed, as well as the composition of the WPA bureaucracy, both locally and at the federal level. While historians still use them, some of the narratives are considered more valuable as an examination of racial attitudes in the ‘30s than as a true picture of slavery in the antebellum south. Even so, some books and narratives managed to give a straightforward view of slavery, as well as valuable insight into the minds of both the people held in bondage, as well as their captives. I’m attaching a link here to an article I found extremely informative about this: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2016/07/can_wpa_slave_narratives_be_trusted_or_are_they_tainted_by_depression_era.html

The Writer's Project, along with the Theater Project, were the two divisions of FP #1 that faced the most criticism from conservatives in Congress, mainly because of their approach to labor, social, and racial issues. The House Committee on Un-American Activities accused the leadership of both projects of being communist, and their programs of being under Soviet control. In 1939, after years of smears and innuendo, Congress defunded both projects (while tripling HUACs budget.)

Though flawed, while it existed, the editors envisioned the Writers’ Project’s self-portrait as one of vibrancy and diversity. As Andrea Kalin said in her film, Soul of a People, the FWP was “much more than guidebooks and oral histories. It was where social and economic history met the individual imagination in literature.'' In their work, the editors tried to celebrate and represent a wide variety of voices, and to define America according to a progressive, expansive, and inclusive idea of what it means to be an American.

This is our moment to carry on and improve that vision; to make our own self-portrait, because we know America can only be truly great when it cares for its people as much as they care for it. Along with the Green New Deal, perhaps it’s time for a 21st century WPA.