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Rewriting America
New Essays on the Federal Writers' Project
Edited by Sara Rutkowski
Published by: University of Massachusetts Press
264 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 1.00 in, 11 illus.
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Established in 1935, the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) sent over 6,500 unemployed historians, teachers, writers, and librarians out to document America’s past and present in the midst of the Great Depression. The English poet W. H. Auden referred to this New Deal program as “one of the noblest and most absurd undertakings ever attempted by any state.”
Featuring original work by scholars from a range of disciplinary perspectives, this edited collection provides fresh insights into how this extraordinary program helped transform American culture. In addition to examining some of the major twentieth-century writers whose careers the FWP helped to launch—including Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and Margaret Walker—Rewriting America presents new perspectives on the role of African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and women on the project. Essays also address how the project’s goals continue to resonate with contemporary realities in the midst of major economic and cultural upheaval.
Along with the volume editor, contributors include Adam Arenson, Sue Rubenstein DeMasi, Racheal Harris, Jerrold Hirsch, Kathi King, Maiko Mine, Deborah Mutnick, Diane Noreen Rivera, Greg Robinson, Robert Singer, James Sun, and David A. Taylor.
Editor’s Introduction
SARA RUTKOWSKI
PART I: POLITICS, PURPOSE, AND VISION
CHAPTER 1
Three Lenses on the Legacy of the Federal Writers’ Project
DAVID A. TAYLOR
CHAPTER 2
Henry Alsberg: Architect and Defender of the Project and Its Legacies
SUE RUBENSTEIN DEMASI
CHAPTER 3
Understanding the Living Lore Units: B. A. Botkin, Folklore, and Creative Writing on the FWP
JERROLD HIRSCH
CHAPTER 4
"Shadows of tragic premonition”: The Native Son and the Federal Writers’ Project
DEBORAH MUTNICK
PART II: THE AMERICAN SCENE
CHAPTER 5
State Guides Then and Now: From Controversial New Deal Project to National Treasure
ADAM ARENSON
CHAPTER 6
Of Conquistadors and Corridos: Aurora Lucero-White and the New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project
DIANA NOREEN RIVERA
CHAPTER 7
Lyle Saxon: The FWP, Identity, and Historical Tourism in New Orleans
RACHEAL HARRIS
CHAPTER 8
A View from the Boardwalk: The New York City Guide and Coney Island Hypertext
ROBERT SINGER
PART III: RAW MATERIAL AND OPPORTUNITY
CHAPTER 9
“Crime and Juvenile Delinquency—my pet hobby at present”: Margaret Walker and the FWP in Chicago
KATHI KING
CHAPTER 10
Ernest J. Gaines’s Literary and Historical Strategies in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman: Imitating the Federal Writers’ Project Slave Narratives
MAIKO MINE
CHAPTER 11
Eddie Shimano and Gerald Chan Sieg: Asian American Writers in the FWP
GREG ROBINSON AND JAMES SUN
CHAPTER 12
A View of the Archives: Ralph Ellison’s Collection of Children’s Rhymes for the FWP
SARA RUTKOWSKI
Afterword
DEBORAH MUTNICK
Contributors
Index
SARA RUTKOWSKI is associate professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough Community College and author of Literary Legacies of the Federal Writers’ Project: Voices of the Depression in the American Postwar Era.
“Rewriting America demonstrates some of the most vibrant undertakings of the Federal Writers’ Project—to focus on regionalism, de-center European standards, and feature previously marginalized voices. The essays are well written and will grab the attention of anyone interested in the New Deal arts programs.”—Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, author of Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era