Editing Federal Writers' Project (section)

== Ancillary projects ==
[[Image:George Dillard 85 former slave.jpg|thumb|upright=1|George Dillard's oral history was recorded in 1936 for the [[Slave Narrative Collection]] by the Federal Writers' Project.]]
Notable FWP projects included the [[Slave Narrative Collection]], a set of interviews that culminated in more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/|title=About this Collection &#124; Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936–1938 &#124; Digital Collections &#124; Library of Congress|website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}</ref> Many of these narratives are available online from the above-named collection at the [[Library of Congress]] website. Folklorist [[Benjamin A. Botkin]] was instrumental in insuring the survival of these manuscripts. Among the many researchers and authors who have used this collection are [[Colson Whitehead]], who drew from it for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, ''[[The Underground Railroad (novel)|The Underground Railroad]]''.

Other programs that emerged from Alsberg's desire to create an inclusive "self-portrait of America" were the Life History and Folklore projects. These consisted of first-person narratives and interviews (collected and conducted by FWP workers), which represented people of various ethnicities, regions, and occupations. According to the Library of Congress website, ''American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1940'', the documents "chronicle vivid life stories of Americans who lived at the turn of the century and include tales of meeting Billy the Kid, surviving the [[Great Chicago Fire|1871 Chicago fire]], pioneer journeys out West, grueling factory work, and the immigrant experience. Writers hired by this Depression-era work project included [[Ralph Ellison]], [[Nelson Algren]], [[May Swenson]], and many others."<ref>{{Cite web |title=About this Collection {{!}} American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 {{!}} Digital Collections {{!}} Library of Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/federal-writers-project/about-this-collection/ |access-date=2023-03-28 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}</ref>

Among several projects within these first-person narratives was the Southern Life History Project created by [[William Terry Couch|William Couch]], head of the [[University of North Carolina Press]], and Southeast Regional Director of the Federal Writers' Project.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hirsch |first=Jerrold |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56356656 |title=Portrait of America : a cultural history of the Federal Writers' Project |date=2003 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=0-8078-6166-9 |location=Chapel Hill |oclc=56356656}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Arnold |first=Taylor |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1337868509 |title=Layered lives : rhetoric and representation in the Southern Life History Project |date=2022 |others=Courtney Rivard, Lauren Tilton |isbn=978-1-5036-1528-1 |location=[Stanford, California] |oclc=1337868509}}</ref> In ''These Are Our Lives'', the only book published by the Southern Life History project, Couch explained that their goal was to "get life histories which are readable and faithful representations of living persons, and which taken together, will give a fair picture of the structure and working of society."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Federal Writers' Project |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1138001 |title=These are our lives |date=1975 |publisher=Norton |isbn=0-393-00763-4 |location=New York |oclc=1138001}}</ref>

The Illinois Writers' Project, was one of the few racially integrated project sites. Among its directors was [[Jacob Scher (journalist)|Jacob Scher]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Special to The New York Times |date=September 28, 1961 |title=Prof. Jacob Scher of Northwestern, Leader in Fight of Press Against U.S. Secrecy Dies |pages=35 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> The [[Chicago]] project employed [[Arna Bontemps]], an established voice of the [[Harlem Renaissance]], and helped to launch the literary careers of African-American writers such as [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]], [[Margaret Walker]], [[Katherine Dunham]], and [[Frank Yerby]].<ref>(Mangione 1972).</ref>

The Virginia Negro Studies Project employed 16 African-American writers and culminated in the publication of ''The Negro in Virginia'' (1940).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/opac/wpalhabout.htm|title=Library of Virginia, About the WPA Life Histories Collection|access-date=March 10, 2018}}</ref> Notably, it included photographs by [[Robert H. McNeill|Robert McNeill]], now remembered as a groundbreaking African-American photographer. African-American writer [[Zora Neale Hurston]] was employed by the Florida Writers' Project. Years after her death, her unpublished works from this time were compiled in ''Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers' Project'' (1999).<ref>{{Cite book|title=Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers' Project|last=Bordelon|first=Pamela|publisher=W.W. Norton|year=1999|isbn=978-0393318135|location=New York|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/gogatormuddywate00hurs_0}}</ref>

A short-lived FWP project was called [[America Eats]], a proposed book of the regional foodways of the United States. Writers in each state were tasked with gathering information about foods and food-related events unique to their area, and preparing essays about these.<ref>{{cite book | last=Begin | first=C. | title=Taste of the Nation: The New Deal Search for America's Food | publisher=University of Illinois Press | series=Studies in Sensory History | year=2016 | isbn=978-0252098512 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TUoHDAAAQBAJ | access-date=2022-01-24 | pages=1–9}}</ref> The country was divided into five regions: the Northeast, the South, the Middle West, the Far West, and the Southwest. While materials, in various quantities, were gathered from all five regions, the book ''America Eats!'' was never completed and published. The United States entry into World War II in 1943 resulted in a loss of funding for the FWP and its projects. Materials from the America Eats project are held in various archives and libraries around the country, including at the Library of Congress and the [[Montana State University Archives and Special Collections]]. A large digital archive called What America Ate has been created to house the digitized remains of the project.<ref>{{cite web | title=About | website=What America Ate | url=https://whatamericaate.org/about.php | access-date=2022-01-24}}</ref>