The Great Depression was the most serious
national crisis since the Civil War. The Stock Market Crash of 1929
spelled financial disaster for millions, reverberating for years
and shaking Americans’ view of their country as a can-do culture.
Nationwide, one out of four Americans had no job. Families often
left town without a word to avoid debt collectors.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
In the 1930s Franklin D. Roosevelt created a series of make-work
agencies, including the Federal Writers’ Project, to get
the economy moving again. The purpose was emergency aid. Nobody
expected that such an agency would create anything meaningful
as a snapshot of America at a critical moment: a time when old
ways were breaking down and new American stories were just emerging.
UPCOMING EVENT
Pursuing "Writers, Plumbers, and Anarchists"
in Massachusetts
November 21, 2009
2-4 pm
Forbes Library, Community Room
Christine Bold discusses some of the secrets, surprises, and
unexpected silences which she discovered in the archives of the
Massachusetts Writers' Project (1935-43) while researching her
book Writers, Plumbers, and Anarchists: The WPA Writers' Project
in Massachusetts (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006). The
press of the day routinely disparaged Project writers as "plumbers"
and branded them as anarchists and subversives after the publication
of the Massachusetts state guide, with its controversial passages
on Sacco and Vanzetti and labour struggles. The surviving records
shed new light on these controversies and offer intriguing glimpses
into life as a "worker-writer" in 1930s' Massachusetts.
Bio: Christine Bold
Christine Bold is Professor of English at the University of Guelph
in Canada and author of three books—Writers, Plumbers, and
Anarchists: The WPA Writers’ Project in Massachusetts (2006);
The WPA Guides: Mapping America (1999); and Selling the Wild West:
Popular Western Fiction, 1860-1960 (1987)—as well as numerous
chapters and articles on popular culture and cultural memory.
She has also coauthored the award-winning book Remembering Women
Murdered by Men: Memorials across Canada (2006) by the Cultural
Memory Group, a collaboration between academics and social justice
workers. She is currently editing U.S. Popular Print Culture,
1860-1920 (one volume in the Oxford History of Popular Print Culture)
and writing a book titled The Frontier Club: Popular Westerns
and Cultural Power, 1880-1924.
Links to information
about the upcoming Soul of a People television broadcast:
The
Smithsonian website: Soul of a People
Soul
of a People sneek peek video
Podcast
This lovely and lively discussion of Soul Of A People, and interview
with one of the film's featured scholars David Bradley, aired
this weekend on Sirius Radio. This link will take you to Bob Edward's
podcast of the entire show which also includes an interview with
Karen Downey about her book on Francis Perkins--The Woman Behind
The New Deal. Great listening!
http://podcast.com/episode/43980057/32910/?cp=1125
Soul of a People: Writing America’s
Story is a major documentary
television program about the Federal Writers’ Project produced
by Spark Media, Washington, D.C., and broadcast on the Smithsonian
Channel HD. Soul of a People programs in libraries are sponsored
by the American Library Association Public Programs Office with
the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities: great
ideas brought to life.
Page last updated November 4, 2009.
|
