Originally Published in the Spring 2006 ...
Introduction : The New Deal Era / The Birth of Federal One and The Federal Writers' Project
In May 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the Works
Progress Administration. Rising out of the
massive Emergency Relief Appropriations Act passed
by Congress a month earlier, the WPA built on the
smaller successful Public / Civil
Works Administrations that came to fruition
with the National Industrial Recovery Act of
1933. The WPA would represent a policy shift. Whereas
the private sector was not only the target patient
but actively sought as government’s partner
in the NIRA – and the National Recovery
Administration which was formed to oversee
its implementation – a dearth of compromise
and willing partnerships had doomed the NIRA to
be statistically ineffective. Overall, the
NIRA / NRA had provided a boost to national morale
and alongside 1933’s Federal Emergency
Relief Act helped to diffuse radical tensions
amongst labor and the unemployed; but they had
done little to ease the economic uncertainly brought
on by the Great Depression. (NRA labor codes were
eventually ruled unconstitutional by a conservative
majority of the Supreme Court in 1935 [Schechter
Poultry v. U.S.]). But if the New Deal was
anything, it was not complacent. And so, it moved
on to ‘phase
two.’
What would make the WPA different was its wholesale
reliance on public works, with the Federal government
as employer instead of a ‘relief roll’ resource.
Infused with five billion dollars, no Federal project
of such scale as the WPA had ever been attempted
in this country on behalf of easing general economic
distress. It was aimed directly at helping the
average majority. Behind the Social Security
Act, it’s fairly argued that the productions
of the WPA were amongst the most tangible New Deal
results to the average American. Its dependence
on work over ‘the dole’ was more true
to the American character. And the theoretic argument
of public v. private sector aside, earned dollars
re-entering the economy via consumer spending by
the previously unemployed was a positive thing,
however achieved. The Great Depression, well-documented
as the hardest of the many economic crises America
had endured, was still casting long shadows over
everything five years after the market implosions
that had helped induce it. Aside from basic stabilization,
the vigorous attempts of the Administration and
their allies in Congress had stalled in the face
of continued institutional imbalances, inequity
and the ‘cutthroat’ mentalities that
had played such large roles in landing the economy
in so sorry a state. Combined with the darkening
clouds of political upheaval / unrest then spreading
across Europe and Asia, it was a ‘perfect
storm’ of ill circumstances within which
to muster a sustained economic recovery.
Undaunted by the mediocre performance of past initiatives,
the WPA became central to FDR’s ‘new’ New
Deal . . . The successes and / or failures of the
New Deal have been weighed / scrutinized / documented
by historians, economists, pundits and politicians
since its inception. The believers, the non-believers
and those neutral have combined to produce a mountain
of work that runs the ideological gamut: from the
overtly positive / negative to incisive critiques
to rants conveniently lacking context. To a degree,
the success / failure of the New Deal will always
remain a matter of opinion. But the reality of
1935 bears certain undeniable truths, one being:
if Roosevelt and the Federal government had little
to show for its effort economically to that point,
the same was true of private enterprise. Something
needed to be done aside from “let’s
wait and see” . . . And so, the Works
Progress Administration moved forward. At
its core was FDR’s desire that the government: “quit
this business of relief.” If the private
sector could not right the economy in lieu of circumstances
and create opportunities for the unemployed masses
(at points having soared to over a third of the
national workforce), then the Feds would give it
a try. . . .
It was against this backdrop that Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s
hand-picked director for the WPA, announced a revolutionary
public works project in the summer of 1935: Federal
Project Number One. In keeping with the
administration’s desire to democratize all
aspects of American life, this sub-project made
sure that ‘culture’ was included in
that mission: FDR’s underlying wish that
all Americans – not just the wealthy – have
access to “a more abundant life.”
Federal One would be a ‘New Deal for the Arts.’
* * *
Composed of four sections – the Writers’ / Music
/ Theatre / Art projects – Federal One was
designed around the fact that the Depression had
been equally hard on those employed in the creative
arts. In NARA curator Bruce Bustard’s “A
New Deal for the Arts” (a companion
to the 1997 NARA exhibit of the same name), he
notes: “Struggling even in the best of times,
during the Depression many artists found themselves
jobless and without the resources to pursue their
vocations.” Just like those unemployed in
the more traditional industrial / manufacturing
and white-collar fields, artists had to eat, too.
And so WPA administrators expanded the notion of
replacing ‘public charity’ with working
for a salary into the mentioned creative fields.
As with skilled-yet-jobless mechanics or out-of-work
engineers, a journalist, trombonist, stage actor
or portrait painter had a certain skill-set that
required the professional pace of steady work to
maintain. The economic dirge that defined the first
half of the 1930s had also stunted the growth of
young creative talent across the country. Federal
One would help fill various voids of opportunity
and champion the notion of ‘the arts for
all’ as no other government program before
or since . . . But such a revolutionary proposition – relief
work for artists – would swim upstream
for popular and legislative support during its
short-lived existence. The project would be praised
for its voluminous works and ridiculed as a bureaucratic
waste, all the while fighting the notion documented
by historian Robert McElvaine that “people
had a hard time accepting singing and acting as
work.” Anyone who has pursued either professionally
realizes the misconception; but so was the average
working person’s perception of the arts:
a pastime for the well-to-do with time and money
on their hands, not a vocation that feeds families. Federal
One, it was hoped, could change all that.
The WPA arts project would eventually succumb to focused
partisan attacks (which painted the entire venture
as a Communist front) and the more pressing need
of mobilizing for war. But before the overall
project was dissolved in 1939, it would provide
work for tens of thousands of previously unemployed
creative individuals, incubate the early careers
of several celebrated authors, poets, conductors,
actors, directors, painters and sculptors, and
churn out an enormous amount of work – all
of which found its way into the everyday life of
what proved to be an ‘arts hungry’ America.
If not always pleased with paying for it, Americans
nonetheless showed a ravenous appetite for its
programs (especially the performance-oriented Theatre
and Music sections). Despite the administrative
snafus and union-oriented flare-ups, project artists
overall proved dedicated purveyors of culture.
Efficient and prolific, they produced tangible
results on the government’s ‘dime.’ And
considering expenditures would not at any point
during its existence exceed 1% of the WPA budget,
it seems an added bargain that most of it was also
pretty good art.
Many have argued that of the four sections The
Federal Writers’ Project was the most
successful. Though debatable considering the
tremendous output of each, the proficient depth
of the FWP’s American
Guide Series could make the case all on
its own. Carl Sandburg is rumored to have claimed
the state guides were the “WPA’s finest
monument.” Whether he said it or not, the
statement rings true.
My original intent was to focus an individual study on
each of the project’s four sections, beginning
with the FWP. However, while researching my interest
in the writers’ section became an all-consuming
one. Here then is the story of The Federal Writers’ Project during
the Federal One period.
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