Tuesday, May 19, 7 p.m. The Federal Writer’s Project program continues….
University of Chicago professor Kenneth Warren, who specializes in American and African-American literature, will discuss Federal Writers’ Project author Richard Wright and his book Native Son.
On Sunday May 17, it was not business as usual as the Highland Park Public Library celebrated the Federal Writer’s Project. Three vintage cars (2 Fords and Packard) set the mood…parked in the 15-minute spaces!!!!
Inside, volunteers served up Sloppy Joes (reputedly created in Sioux City, Iowa in 1934) and visitors were encouraged to eat them. Right in the library. And offered Twinkies to those who could find 10 cans of Spam hidden amongst the stacks. Here is one the I found….
If all that was un-Highland Park Public Library enough, right in front of the new fiction, a three man band played favorites from the 30′s.
In the Highland Park Public Library’s Adult Wing, advertisements, posters, photographs, even entries from the phone book (Ravinia is listed under amusements) reflected the period.
At 2:00, Michael Gabriel from Roosevelt University’s Center for New Deal Studies lectured on the New Deal and the WPA. He put the Federal Writer’s Project in the context of FDR’s “alphabet soup,” of new programs including the WPA: Works Progress Administration (changed to Works Projects Administration in 1939). These programs combined to provide jobs for over 8 million Americans.
Following the lecture, the audience previewed excerpts from the documentary film Soul of A People: Writing America’s Story producted by Spark Media. Narrated by Patricia Clarkson, the film combines rare archival footage of the period and the people in the Federal Writer’s Project with interviews of the participants; including Studs Terkel in his last recorded interview.
Studs celebrating with the crew!!!! (american-voices.net)
What makes the film so fascinating is the conflict created when over 6,000 talented, idiosyncratic, independent, and flat-broke writers fanned out across the 48 states, DC, and Alaska territory.
Henry Alsberg, a former lawyer who became interested in the theater as a writer and as a director of off-Broadway productions, directed this project. Often finding himself at odds with the writers of the individual state guides, the states themselves, and most prominently, Martin Dies Jr. the co-chair of House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC).
Ostensibly, Dies commission sought to remove Communists and others with “anti-Capitalist” leaning from the Federal Writer’s Project and Federal Theater Project. The state guides, although they included travel routes would not be confused with mere tourist reading material. Often gritty, filled with stories of outlaws, corrupt politicians, poverty, and “hard times”, the drama in the film “centers on the struggle between two visions of our country–between an idyllic version and the iconoclastic picture that went into the state guides–how that struggle played out in the effort to hold up a mirror to America.”
The afternoon concluded with Dr. Harry Ross, National-Louis University, Chair, Department of Secondary Education, giving a very enthusiastic account of “American Life Histories” created during the Federal Writers’ Project. We had the experience of listening to an audio narrative of a former slave…a staggering connection with the past.
There is still more to come in the series including tonight’s program….
Thursday, June 4, 7 p.m.
Mike Leonard, popular Today Show correspondent and author of The Ride of Our Lives, discusses the Federal Writers’ Project travel guides created for every state and talks about his family’s own cross-country travels.
Thursday, June 11, 7 p.m.
Dr. Harry Ross, National-Louis University, Chair, Department of Secondary Education, will discuss a selection of “American Life Histories” created during the Federal Writers’ Project. The histories he will focus on are first-person accounts of life in the 1930′s in Chicago and New York City.
