Secrets from the Horse’s Mouth

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, one of the New Deal programs was to pay writers to document the stories of everyday Americans. It was funded by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and was called the Federal Writer's project. The most famous—and controversial--of the publications were the 48 state guides known as the American Guide Series. Each contained detailed histories of the state with descriptions of every city and town, es