ABOUT THE WPA AMERICAN GUIDES

American Guide Advertisting

Part travel guide, part social commentary, and part regional history companion, the American Guide Series was the most important achievement of the Federal Writers’ Project, a program of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Created at the cusp of the automobile touring age, with highways being completed and European travel limited due to unrest on the continent, an individual guide book was produced for each of the then 48 states, territories, and the District of Columbia beginning in 1935. The authors remain mostly anonymous; however the project included the efforts of a number of literary notables such as Saul Bellow, Richard Right, and Ralph Ellison.  They produced a series quite a world away from previous comprehensive guides to the states, which lent such advice as advising the traveler he would be safe leaving his firearm at home.

How has the United States changed in the years since the last volume of the series was completed, only weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor? The World War that followed was fought and won. Two states, Alaska and Hawaii, joined the union. The Civil Rights movement brought about great change to the urban landscape. The population of the country has almost doubled. The writers of the 1930’s and 40’s could not have foreseen all these events, however they could see and describe one significant change; the shift in the population from the established Eastern to the growing Western cities of Texas, Arizona, and California.

Among the top dozen cities in population as of the 2000 census only five; New York, New York; Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Detroit, Michigan were also in the top dozen cities of the 1940 census. With one exception, Indianapolis, Indiana, the seven newcomers are all sun-soaked western cities; Houston, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; San Diego, California; San Antonio, Texas; Dallas, Texas; and San Jose, California.
While Eastern cities such as Baltimore, Maryland and Boston, Massachusetts have dropped out of the top dozen, and others such as Philadelphia and Detroit have lost population, formerly small Western towns have exploded in size. In the five and a half pages devoted to San Jose in the California guide, about the most exciting thing written was that the area was a leading producer of prunes. Today of course the city is known as an international hub of technology in what is called Silicon Valley, and any number pages could be devoted to the digital innovations originating from the area.  Likewise, Dallas was noted as an oil capitol, but more explanation was given to its ranking in the production of cotton “wash dresses” and manufacture of women’s hats.

As will be seen, cultural change has been significant. No modern guide would list the number of Negro hotels, or Negro swimming pools. There would be no count of the number of ethnic minorities engaged in industry. The American Guides, however, do include such entries showing the nature of the times. Almost any topic was fair game, from union organizing, to architectural criticism, to a send-up of John D. Rockefeller’s bicycling habits, illuminating a subversive tone which can be felt through many of the entries. Some at the time felt the Guides went too far in their criticism and that the government had no place subsidizing the arts. One such critic was Martin Dies, a Texas congressman, who called leaders of the Project to testify before his Committee to Investigate UnAmerican Activities.

Finally, the Federal Writers Project which at its height employed over 6,000 men and women came to a close. Time Magazine in February 1943 marked the passing with an obituary:

Final result of the Project's confused, sprawling, misunderstood labors is a solid, impressive job that will undoubtedly be valued for generations to come. Along with the drama of U.S. history, along with the poetry and legend that lie in the names of its States and its rivers, the State Guides also record the heartbreak and the failure that is equally a part of U.S. life—the towns the railroads bypassed, the inventions that did not pan out, the booms that busted, the prophets unhonored in their lifetimes, the soil eroded and washed away.

Source: WPAccounting (1943,  February 15). Time Magazine. Retrieved March 3, 2007 from: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774311,00.html

Interest in the WPA has seen resurgence in their popularity as of late. New scholarly work is being published and the Library of Congress continues to organize and present the material, notably on the web.  While original editions of the American Guides are rare, reprints, in keeping with the spirit of the original project, remain commonly available and affordable.