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Can you recommend a good book about the WPA artists program, or a great book that came out of the Federal Writers' Program?

  • Can you recommend a good book about the WPA artists program, or a great book that came out of the Federal Writers' Program? Bonus points if you know of a fictional story that uses it as the main theme. Recently my girlfriend and I spent some time going through the http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2009/1934/ exhibition at the American Art Museum in Washington. We both enjoyed it, and I plan on getting her the Smithsonian-produced art book for Christmas, but I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on a historical book that looks at the WPA program itself, not necessarily what came out of it. A book discussing the rational, highlighting struggling artists, why it was important to fund the work, implementation of the program, etc. She doesn't really read non-fiction (unlike me, who only reads non-fiction), so a fictional look at the WPA artists program would be amazing. I figure that probably doesn't exist, so recommend whatever you may have. Also, if you know of a great book from the Federal Writers' Program, which was the same basic program but for authors, I'd love suggestions from that as well. I'm more inclined to give her a fiction book that came out of that program than a non-fiction book about WPA art. (anon because it's a Christmas gift and my username is, in hindsight, far too obvious.)

  • Answer:

    Not quite what you were looking for, but I read http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594488657/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/: A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal by Mark Kurlansky this year and found that the combination of actual stuff the WPA writers wrote along with Kurlasky's narration of how the project worked and what happened to it made the whole thing really readable. Granted, I like non-fiction so this may not work for you, but if she's into cooking or food at all, she will likely find this interesting. There are also a lot of the Writer's Project histories available http://rs6.loc.gov/wpaintro/wpahome.html which are linked by region. You might want to see if you could find a particularly locally appropriate one [they have page images available] which might make a neat card.

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Ralph Ellison collected stories as part of the WPA. The stories he collected, the experiences he had, informed so much of Invisible Man, that it arguably couldn't have been written without the WPA. Other important writers who came out of the Federal Writers Program: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. A good book: Soul of a People: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470403802/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/.

girlbowler

Check out James Agee's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Us_Now_Praise_Famous_Men, which reads like Whitman's fiction but covers abject Southern poverty among white sharecroppers. He and photographer Walker Evans documented these stories as part of the New Deal projects. It's one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

zoomorphic

Also, as someone who reads fiction almost exclusively, I really loved http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565847393/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/.

zoomorphic

I liked http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553381326/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, which covers the program from start to finish, with focus on particular projects, including arts programs - particularly the theater program and the collection of state guidebooks. Also looks at several other programs, and puts the whole thing in the context of its time. Big takeaway: the Republicans haven't changed a whit. You could literally plug almost anything quoted in this book into the current political landscape and not be able to spot the edges.

Naberius

There's some good stuff to read online at the http://livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu/stories.html project. Gray Brechin is a really interesting lecturer and writer. Also, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1890771678/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ contains some New Deal/WPA art and might be up your alley. As is http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594742928/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/

vickyverky

There's also the film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0150216/, which is an ensemble of basically every left leaning actor in Hollywood dealing (a tad melodramaticly, perhaps) with theater under the WPA, focusing on the issue of funding art which doesn't follow mainstream tastes with politically attached money. Worth a watch, maybe, as an appetizer, before you get into meatier fare.

Ghidorah

Can't find a link right now, but the WPA Guide to New York City is great.

boots

Seconding the recommendation of American Made above. Christine Bold's http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578061954/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ is a decent (albeit a bit academic) summary of the history of the Federal Writer's Project Guides (with a bit of literary analysis thrown in). A bit older, but a much better read, is Jerre Mangione's http://books.google.com/books?id=8CGsYrBNjY8C&dq=%22the+dream+and+the+deal%22+mangione&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=xsA2vKukMx&sig=8EQIqsenxlgf1VmjcA8alSXl8C8&hl=en&ei=UV0US-DbKoj4sgPQ65iCBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA, written in 1972. Mangione worked for the FWP, and did a lot of oral interviews with people who worked for the WPA in various capacities.

heurtebise

I cannot for the life of me find the title, but I happened across a murder mystery (!) themed around one of the New Deal projects (I think it was the Writer's Project, but again, my memory is hazy, and there are so many acronyms...) which sounds like it might be ideal. Of course, since this answer is far from the same way, you might be out of luck. I found it while browsing library shelves at a university library, but of course said library does not store patrons' back catalogues for them. If I could remember more of the plot, even... because it sounds like what you're looking for in terms of contemporaneous presentations of pro- and con- arguments about the FWP, and is also fiction -- although I don't think the author was on the Project. Anyway, this answer probably deserves the "Worst Answer" tag, but I wanted you to know that such a thing existed, in case your (or some other Mefite's) google-fu is better than mine.

obliquicity

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