The American Guide Series, produced by the Federal Writers’ Project, is one of the most well-known WPA projects. Written as a collection of travel guides, the series included suggested tour routes as well as essays on the history and culture of each U.S. state and territory. Major U.S. cities and several regions were also given their own separate guidebooks.
The state guides give a fascinating snapshot of American life in the 1930s. Written in a lively and approachable style, they detail and celebrate the rich diversity that our country displayed at that time. The writers’ enthusiasm is infectious and their guide is as much fun to read today as it must have been for travelers in the 1930s.
Several historians have written about the American Guide Series over the past 80 years, but no one, to my knowledge, has used them as current-day travel guides. That is just what I set out to do. I am an American historian, art photographer, and enthusiastic traveler. I have read each of these guides. I love them for their wonderful enthusiasm and their curiosity about every aspect of regional life—from food, to linguistics, to folklore, to statistics, to geography, to environment, to history—and especially for their liberal attitudes and respect for diversity. In this series, I will be posting photo essays and articles based upon tours recommended in the guides.
Fern L. Nesson
The Borough of Brooklyn has always had a somewhat fractious, competitive relationship with its neighbor, Manhattan. Founded as a separate village — later a separate city — Brooklyn resisted incorporation into New York City until 1898. The New York City Guide references the tension:
“When in 1838, it was [first] proposed that the village of Brooklyn become incorporated into the city of New York, [a prominent Brooklynite] declared ‘there is nothing in common, either in object, interest or feeling — nothing that even apparently tends to their connexion.'”
New York City Guide p. 431 (1939).
After incorporation, the traces of this rivalry remained. A beneficiary of this competitive spirit was the Brooklyn Museum. Designed in the Beaux Arts style by the noted architects, McKim, Mead and White in 1897, the plan was to build the largest museum in the world:
Only the central portion and one wing of the plan were completed but the building is immense huge and and impressive nonetheless:
“The building, constructed in four sections between 1897 and 1925 at a cost of $3,300,00 … is an impressive monument … with four galleries for special temporary exhibits ….
The permanent exhibitions on the first floor embrace the Indian cultures of North and South America, Malaysia, Polynesia, Melanesia, Northern Japan and … Africa. The American Indian collections, including rich specimens of pre-Columbian gold ornament are among the finest … to be seen in any museum. …Whether it is an Ecuadorian jaguar in clay. exquisitely woven shrouds from Peru, totemic carvings from the northwest American coast. … or the sturdy fetish figures from the Congo, each local culture is seem to produce objects which are at once useful and beautiful.
On the second floor is the permanent collection of the arts of Persia, India, Japan and China and .. the well-equipped library.. The Greek and Roman collections [are] on the third floor [as are ] the Egyptological collections. …
The gallery of medieval art on the fourth floor provides examples pf painting, sculpture and craftwork from the late Roman Empire to the Renaissance as well as the Byzantine Empire…”
New York City Guide p. 489-91.
And there is much, much more: colonial American furniture, medieval tapestries, gorgeous American, Renaissance Impressionist and modern paintings. You get the idea. There is more than enough to at least forestall a subway ride to the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan.
As a born and bred Manhattanite, I had never visited the Brooklyn Museum. I went for the first time see the museum’s blockbuster exhibition: Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams. After acclaimed stops in Shanghai, London and Paris, Dior opened at the museum this September.
The exhibition includes over two hundred Dior gowns plus photographs, videos, perfume bottles and accessories. Every era of Dior designs is represented, including the “New Look,” which debuted in 1947. Dresses by Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Gianfranco Ferré, and John Galliano, among others, are admirably represented.
The Brooklyn Museum provides a wonderful venue for the exhibit. As the Guide notes, its galleries are spacious, beautifully lit and “devoid of the elaborate decorations which so often clutter up … public buildings. [They are] ideal backgrounds for the display of works of art.” (New York City Guide p. 489)
The entire third floor of the Museum is devoted to Dior. It has vast amounts of space for the artfully-grouped dresses. Its walls and passageways are dramatically lit and its ceilings seem to reach to the sky. The exhibit winds through gallery after gallery culminating in the Museum’s famed Beaux Arts Court, which has been transformed into an enchanted garden. “This magnificent, timeless space measures 10,000 square feet and two stories high, rising 60 feet above the floor to culminate in a dramatic skylight. It boasts historic features such as original archways, a large brass chandelier, and an updated glass-tile floor originally completed in 1927.” (Brooklyn Museum website) The Court provides a perfect backdrop, not only for the ball gowns, but for the spectacular light show that accompanies the exhibit.
Since it opened in September, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams has been sold out continually, but the space never feels crowded. There is plenty of room to wander, contemplate and enjoy. This makes a big difference, not only in the aesthetic experience, but in the mood of the (very diverse) crowd. I watched as visitors exclaimed over the dresses and the setting and started up friendly conversations with others who happened to be nearby. No one appeared impatient or hurried. We all had a really good time.
Dior will be at the Brooklyn Museum through February. I encourage anyone who can to make the trip to visit. And save plenty time for the rest of the Museum as well. As the Guide indicates, there is lots to see in the permanent collections.
November, 2021
