Soul of a People tells the story of a vital component of the much larger Works Progress Administration – the Federal Writers’ Project. The Federal Writers’ Project recruited jobless intellectuals from the millions of unemployed workers during the Great Depression, assigning them to write travel guides and historical pamphlets. At its height, the Federal Writers’ Project employed about 7,500 people nationwide, including John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, and Studs Terkel. Despite its success in documenting American life and folkways and in supporting many of America’s greatest writers of the era, the Federal Writers’ Project was frequently accused of serving as a breeding ground for foreign propaganda and communism.
Perusing the output of the Federal Writers’ Project today – and many of its works are republished and still in circulation – readers will find some wonderful coverage of US cities like New York and San Francisco, as well as vivid snapshots of “battles and landmarks, local histories and festivals, and lore.” In his lively book Soul of a People, journalist David A. Taylor turns the work of the New Deal writers on its head, investigating what the guides might teach us about US culture during the Great Depression. Many historians, including Christine Bold, Jerrold Hirsch, Bernard Weisberger, and Douglas Brinkley have revisited the Federal Writers’ Project, offering those researching the program a critical literature on the many facets of the program. The strength of Taylor’s book is both its lively writing and its regional focus, with chapters on Idaho, Nebraska, California, and Florida.
Reviewed by Samuel Redman