SOUL OF A PEOPLE The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America

Reading with warmth, clarity, and a sense of informed curiosity, narrator Robin Sitten takes listeners on a fascinating behind-the-scenes tour of one of the U.S. Government's most creative and, sadly, obscure legacies. The Federal Writers' Project's American Guide Series was an inspiring collection of folktales, local histories, and automobile tours taking in every corner, territory, state, and city of the United States. From 1935 to 1941, as the Great Depression worsened, the Works Progress Administration hired more than 6,000 jobless writers and poets, including Ralph Ellison, Kenneth Rexroth, Studs Terkel, and Margaret Walker, to interview and document anyone from fishmongers to musicians to former slaves. Sitten even makes the lists of WPA Guide reprints and related materials sound absolutely essential to the armchair traveler. B.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2020]