I bought the cardboard box of books for “The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.” There were a half-dozen or more old books in the box but I only wanted that one. I was afraid to ask the auction staffer to pull it for a separate bid because I was afraid that someone else would recognize the poet’s name and a $5 book would soar to $50.
The auctioneer was not having a good day unloading boxes of books. She had tried to sell four large boxes earlier and there no takers, not even at $1 for all. I was hoping for the same this time around when another four boxes came up for bids. I had glanced at the titles, and the Dunbar book was the only one that interested me.
I was the only bidder and I took one box. I went straight to the Dunbar book and was about to leave the others when I decided to examine them a bit closer. The first was titled “The Ohio Guide” with an illustration on the cover, and I assumed it was a history of the state. Opening the book, I became excited about what I read on the title page.
The Ohio Guide
Compiled by workers of the Writers’ Program
of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Ohio
American Guide Series
Illustrated
I was holding a product of the government’s largesse from the Depression era, a book published in 1940. I began checking the box even more thoroughly for other such guides, and found ones for Maine (1937) and Minnesota (1938). The credit line for those two were slightly different: “Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration.” None of them, unfortunately, had dust jackets (which always increases the value).
I was very familiar with the Works Progress Administration and its artists program, which included many African Americans and other artists whom I have written about. Starting in 1935, the federal agency put artists, writers and other unemployed people to work on public projects when jobs were either scarce or non-existent during the Depression. Conceived by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the agency provided jobs to millions of people to do such things as build roads, public parks, schools, playgrounds and airports. In 1939, it was renamed the Work Projects Administration.
Under the agency’s Federal Project Number One were several programs with an artistic bent. The Federal Writers Project produced, among other things, state and regional travel guides like the ones at auction. Its Folklore Project recorded the stories of men and women throughout the country, including former slaves. Among the 6,000 writers – both published and unpublished – were Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, John Cheever, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and Eudora Welty (as a photographer).
The Federal Art Project was responsible for creating murals, sculptures and other artwork for public buildings and sites. The Federal Theater Project performed plays throughout the country, among other things. African American playwright Theodore Ward was in that program. The Federal Music Project created orchestras, held performances and festivals, and offered classes. By the time the agency was shut down in 1943, it had employed about 8.5 million people.
The American Guide Series was the most renowned of the Writers’ Project endeavors, and was designed to entice Americans to travel. Books were written for the then-48 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories of Alaska and Puerto Rico. Hawaii was not a state then. The first book was Idaho in 1937 and Oklahoma was the last in 1941.
The books – along with some specialized publications – covered various aspects of the states: cities; waterways; “racial elements,” which included the ethnic makeup of the population, including its people of color; education; industry; culture; places to see and interesting tidbits (for example, Nevadans loved eating at lunch counters). Here’s what they looked like.
The earlier Maine and Minnesota books I found at auction mentioned the “Negro” population as part of the “racial elements” chapter, but they became part of the “Folklore and Ethnic Groups” in the Ohio guide. Some other books presumably had no specific essays on African Americans in their states. Each book included a map tucked into a sleeve in the back, along with photos and drawings interspersed among the pages of text.
Black contributors to the guides could be found in Chicago, New York and Florida (Zora Neale Hurston was there), but not a large number were hired. Poet Sterling A. Brown was in charge of “Negro Affairs” for the Writers Project, and had to fight to make sure they got a chance to work on the guidebooks and the slave narratives. He also insisted that the word Negro be capitalized and that white writers use care in describing black culture.
The work gave African Americans an opportunity to write and gain a sense of empowerment. “The entire WPA system gave Negro intellectuals, clerical people and so on the first opportunity that they had ever had to exercise their skills and, as with me, to learn new skills,” said poet and author Margaret Walker who became famous in 1942 for her prize-winning poem “For My People.” “There’s no doubt about it, that, to that extent, the economic and social disaster of the country was a freeing experience for the Negro people.”
WPA writers compiled the guides, which were sponsored, financed and distributed by local groups, such as the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. They were published anonymously. None of them carried a writer or photographer’s credit. The national office attempted to establish some commonality in what was offered in the guides.
The guides were said to be very popular with the public. Author John Steinbeck raved about them in his “Travels with Charley: In Search of America” in 1962, lamenting that he could not take every one of them with him on his travels with his poodle Charley. That was not the case with some critics who considered them “left-wing” and questioned why the government was subsidizing the arts. “Hell! They’ve got to eat just like other people,” Harry Hopkins, director of the Works Progress Administration, was quoted as saying.
The Idaho guide is among the most sought-after because a large number of copies were lost in a warehouse fire. It was also the only one with a single author, Vardis Fisher, state director of the Idaho Writers Project. The Dakota books are also said to be worth more because few were produced. Some of the guides have been re-published.
After finding the three books in that one box at auction, I wondered if there were others in the boxes I didn’t take. By that time, one of the assistants had taken the boxes away. Maybe they’ll show up at the next auction.
