American Guide Series

Author : Christine Bold
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 1578061954

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The WPA Guides by Christine Bold Pdf

In 1935 the FDR administration put 40,000 unemployed artists to work in four federal arts projects. The main contribution of one unit, the Federal Writers Project, was the American Guide Series, a collectively composed set of guidebooks to every state, most regions, and many cities, towns, and villages across the United States. The WPA arts projects were poised on the cusp of the modern bureaucratization of culture. They occurred at a moment when the federal government was extending its reach into citizens' daily lives. The 400 guidebooks the teams produced have been widely celebrated as icons of American democracy and diversity. Clumped together, they manifest a lofty role for the project and a heavy responsibility for its teams of writers. The guides assumed the authority of conceptualizing the national identity. In The WPA Guides: Mapping America Christine Bold closely examines this publicized view of the guides and reveals its flaws. Her research in archival materials reveals the negotiations and conflicts between the central editors in Washington and the local people in the states. Race, region, and gender are taken as important categories within which difference and conflict appear. She looks at the guidebook for each of five distinctively different locations -- Idaho, New York City, North Carolina, Missouri, and U.S. One and the Oregon Trail--to assess the editorial plotting of such issues as gender, race, ethnicity, and class. As regionalists jostled with federal officialdom, the faultlines of the project gaped open. Spotlighting the controversies between federal and state bureaucracies, Bold concludes that the image of America that the WPA fostered is closer to fabrication than to actuality. Christine Bold is director of the Centre for Cultural Studies and an associate professor of English at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.

Author : Writers' Program (U.S.)
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 648 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1959
Category : Arizona
ISBN : UCR:31210001314739

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Arizona, the Grand Canyon State by Writers' Program (U.S.) Pdf

Author : Henry Garfield Alsberg
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 1348 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 1949
Category : Automobile travel
ISBN : LCCN:50000024

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The American Guide by Henry Garfield Alsberg Pdf

Author : David A. Taylor
Publisher : Turner Publishing Company
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2010-04-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9780470885888

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Soul of a People by David A. Taylor Pdf

Soul of a People is about a handful of people who were on the Federal Writer's Project in the 1930s and a glimpse of America at a turning point. This particular handful of characters went from poverty to great things later, and included John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Studs Terkel. In the 1930s they were all caught up in an effort to describe America in a series of WPA guides. Through striking images and firsthand accounts, the book reveals their experiences and the most vivid excerpts from selected guides and interviews: Harlem schoolchildren, truckers, Chicago fishmongers, Cuban cigar makers, a Florida midwife, Nebraskan meatpackers, and blind musicians. Drawing on new discoveries from personal collections, archives, and recent biographies, a new picture has emerged in the last decade of how the participants' individual dramas intersected with the larger picture of their subjects. This book illuminates what it felt like to live that experience, how going from joblessness to reporting on their own communities affected artists with varied visions, as well as what feelings such a passage involved: shame humiliation, anger, excitement, nostalgia, and adventure. Also revealed is how the WPA writers anticipated, and perhaps paved the way for, the political movements of the following decades, including the Civil Rights movement, the Women's Right movement, and the Native American rights movement.

Author : Best Books on
Publisher : Best Books on
Page : 749 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 1940
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781623760342

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Ohio by Best Books on Pdf

Author : Federal Writers' Project
Publisher : Trinity University Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2013-10-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781595342454

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The WPA Guide to Washington by Federal Writers' Project Pdf

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors—many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures—were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor. The WPA Guide to Washington exhibits the beauty and individuality found in the Pacific Northwest. The guide takes the reader on a journey across the Evergreen State, from Seattle to Spokane with the Cascades in between. Essays on the state’s large lumber industry and its role in the westward expansion are included.

Author : Federal Writers' Project
Publisher : Trinity University Press
Page : 634 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2013-10-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781595342331

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The WPA Guide to Ohio by Federal Writers' Project Pdf

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors—many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures—were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor. For a reader interested in small town life in the early 20th century, the WPA Guide to Ohio is an excellent resource. A series of photographs by Ben Shahn for the Farm Security Administration is well complemented with 17 selective essays about the political, industrial, and cultural life in the Buckeye State. The essay on the economy provides interesting information on the labor movement in Ohio.

Author : Best Books on
Publisher : Best Books on
Page : 773 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 1940
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781623760373

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Pennsylvania; a Guide to the Keystone State, by Best Books on Pdf

compiled by workers of the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the state of Pennsylvania ... Co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Historical Commission and the University of Pennsylvania.

Author : Jerrold Hirsch
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2004-07-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9780807861660

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Portrait of America by Jerrold Hirsch Pdf

How well do we know our country? Whom do we include when we use the word "American"? These are not just contemporary issues but recurring questions Americans have asked themselves throughout their history--and questions that were addressed when, in 1935, the Roosevelt administration created the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. Although the immediate context of the FWP was work relief, national FWP officials developed programs that spoke to much larger and longer-standing debates over the nature of American identity and culture and the very definition of who was an American. Hirsch reviews the founding of the FWP and the significance of its American Guide series, considering the choices made by administrators who wanted to celebrate diversity as a positive aspect of American cultural identity. In his exploration of the FWP's other writings, Hirsch discusses the project's pioneering use of oral history in interviews with ordinary southerners, ex-slaves, ethnic minorities, and industrial workers. He also examines congressional critics of the FWP vision; the occasional opposition of local Federal Writers, especially in the South; and how the FWP's vision changed in response to the challenge of World War II. In the course of this study, Hirsch raises thought-provoking questions about the relationships between diversity and unity, government and culture, and, ultimately, culture and democracy.

Author : Federal Writers' Project
Publisher : Pantheon
Page : 818 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 1982
Category : History
ISBN : MINN:31951001216801L

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The WPA Guide to New York City by Federal Writers' Project Pdf

This tour guide for time travelers offers New York lovers and 1930s buffs an endlessly fascinating look at life as it was lived in the days when a trolley ride cost five cents, a room at the Plaza was $7.50, and the new World's Fair was the talk of the town. Hailed by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books ever written about the city. Photos. Maps.

Author : Federal Writers' Project,Federal Writers' Project; Norman K. Risjord
Publisher : Minnesota Historical Society
Page : 969 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2008-10-14
Category : Wisconsin
ISBN : 9780873517119

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The WPA Guide to Wisconsin by Federal Writers' Project,Federal Writers' Project; Norman K. Risjord Pdf

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 1946
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:879506558

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Michigan, a Guide to the Wolverine State by Anonim Pdf

Author : Writers' Program (Wash.)
Publisher : North American Book Distributors, LLC
Page : 806 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1972
Category : Washington (State)
ISBN : UOM:49015000640020

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Washington by Writers' Program (Wash.) Pdf

Washington: A Guide To The Evergreen State of the American Guide Series written by the FWP reviews the history of Washington.

Author : WPA
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 1989
Category : History
ISBN : 0813514657

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The WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey by WPA Pdf

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Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015024823406

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The WPA Guide to 1930s Nevada by Anonim Pdf

When Las Vegas boasted two motion picture theatres and the University of Nevada student population reached a high of twelve hundred, the original edition of The WPA Guide to 1930s Nevada was just coming off the press. First published in 1940 as Nevada: A Guide to the Silver State, part of the Work Projects Administration's American Guide Series, the book remains one of Nevada's premier tour and travel volumes. The WPA Guide to 1930s Nevada includes material on the state's geography and geology, plant and animal life, churches and schools. The native population is discussed, as are the arts, mining, ranching, press, sports, and recreation during the 1930s. The period photographs spread throughout the volume give an excellent picture of Nevada in the early part of the twentieth century and complement the profiles of thirty cities and eight detailed tour descriptions that follow the pattern of the major highway through the state.