WPA State Guides

I was thinking, if I were somebody else, that it would be a great idea to write a dissertation on the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writer’s Project and the American Guide Series, a series written as guidebooks to the individual states in the 1930’s by thousands of writers, some famous (Zora Neale Hurston, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison), others not so famous. I mean, what a slice of life! But someone’s already done it. And, besides, I couldn’t figure out how to do it digital (they’re not out of copyright yet). Plus, I’d probably have to GO to each of those states, which I wouldn’t mind at all except for the fact that all the places in the guidebook would probably be (gone) difficult to find. And, of course, since it would be digital, considering each state would probably have to take up my whole life’s work, and I’m trying to live in the here. (I’m not sure DC had a guide).
By the by, there’s an excellent look at the project in Florida at the Library of Congress.

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