In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America
  • Barbara W. Sommer
Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America. By David A. Taylor. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009. 260 pp. Hardbound, $27.95.

A little more than three years after Black Thursday (October 24, 1929), Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated president of the U.S. In that three-year interval, the Great Depression took hold. Unemployment skyrocketed from three percent to twenty-five percent, incomes fell by a third, industrial production fell by a half, housing starts fell by four-fifths, and stock prices fell by nine-tenths. Ten million people lost their savings as eleven thousand banks failed.

In his campaign, Roosevelt promised a New Deal for the American people. When he was elected, he immediately began to put this promise into action. Between 1933 and 1942, he supported passage of New Deal programs focusing on relief, recovery, and reform. Often known as alphabet soup programs, most were [End Page 437] known by their initials. Although they were designed to meet the needs of the time, many are recognized today for their ongoing contributions. Among those, the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933–42), a work/relief program for unemployed young men, now is recognized as the greatest conservation program in U.S. history. The Works Progress (Work Projects) Administration (WPA—1935–42) provided work for unemployed men and women on projects such as roads, sidewalks, government buildings, hospitals, airports, libraries, and post offices; it was the largest Great Depression relief program and helped build American infrastructure. Within the WPA, its Federal One project had five divisions—art, music, writers, theater, and historical records survey. The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP—1935–39) hired over 7500 unemployed writers, historians, teachers, and librarians. It is recognized today for its state guides and for the thousands of first-person interviews conducted through its folklore project.

In this aptly titled book Soul of a People, accompanied by a DVD of the same name produced by Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor offers a behind-the-scenes look at the FWP. The project’s main purpose was to develop state guides with short histories and tours of historic and cultural sites. A second goal was to use first-person interviews to help collect information for the guides. Although the state guides received the most notice at the time, today the interviews receive equal or more attention.

Henry G. Alsberg headed the FWP. Its Folklore Project, designed to give form and context to the growing number of interviews, was first headed by John Lomax. In 1938, Benjamin A. Botkin took the reins. Botkin saw folklore as a tool for improving people’s lives while supporting national recovery and fighting fascism. To this end, he encouraged FWP participants to collect first-person information to find out what people believed and valued. The FWP interviews, which number in the thousands, brought attention to U.S. diversity and led the way to change in such areas as the civil rights movement and the women’s movement (7, 20). Peggy Bulger, Director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the FWP repository, said the interviews became a catalyst for the study of public history and encouraged recognition of oral narratives as “legitimate historical sources.” (“The Presidency: New Deal Art and History Programs,” CSPAN-3, 12/26/2010, re-aired 1/1/2011).

The interviews were done with people “from many walks of life, including the most comprehensive firsthand accounts of slavery ever collected” (11). They were used as sources for the guides, but their importance and impact go beyond that, for example, by liberalizing racial attitudes or by deepening social awareness within literature for decades to come. In the chapter on Chicago and the Midwest, Taylor discusses their use in documenting diversity. FWP participant Meridel Le [End Page 438] Sueur described this: “It was a white culture up to then” (73). In Nebraska, Mari Sandoz met often with WPA project participants and conducted WPA-style interviews for her book Crazy Horse (123). In Florida, the segregated FWP Negro Unit collected some of the most candid exchanges of the slave...

pdf

Share