Editing Federal Writers' Project (section)

== Controversies ==
[[File:Henry Alsberg testifying.tif|thumb|upright=1|[[Henry Alsberg]] testifying before the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] in December 1938]]
For most of its lifetime, the FWP faced a barrage of criticism from [[Conservatism in the United States|American conservatives]]. When ''Massachusetts: A Guide to its Places and People'', was published, it was lauded by government officials, including Governor [[Charles F. Hurley]]. But the day after its publication, "conservatives attacked the book over its essays on the [[1912 Lawrence textile strike]] and other labor issues. Such critics were even more scathing about the coverage of the [[Sacco and Vanzetti]] affair."<ref name=":0" /> Scholars{{Who|date=September 2023}} called the questionable passages fair accounts; the controversy helped increase book sales.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

The most poisonous attacks against the FWP came from the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] (HUAC) and its chair,  Congressman [[Martin Dies Jr.]] of Texas.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mangione|first=Jerre|title=The Dream and the Deal: the Federal Writers' Project, 1935–1943|year=1996|publisher=Syracuse University Press|location=Syracuse|isbn=978-0815604150|page=4}}</ref> Alsberg and [[Hallie Flanagan]], his counterpart at the [[Federal Theatre Project]], faced tremendous scrutiny from the committee. The Dies HUAC committee, like the McCarthy committee of the 1950s, "used inquisitorial scare tactics, innuendo, and unsupported accusations."  Alsberg, Flanagan, and others who were accused of supporting the communist agenda could not "examine evidence against them, could not produce their own witnesses, could not cross-examine accusers."<ref name=":0" /> Accusations that communist activities were carried out openly, and that Soviets funded labor unions, which took control of the arts' projects, were found to be false.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}} Author [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]], a future Guggenheim scholar, was often under attack, with his writings pronounced as "vile".<ref name=":0"/> Among the many charges leveled by HUAC against the FWP and its workers, was that [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]] was not born in the United States. (He was born in Mississippi.) Alsberg wrote a long court brief and provided supporting documents to refute each charge.

First Lady [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] supported the FWP, as did such mainstream publishing companies such as [[Viking Press]], [[Random House]], and [[Alfred A. Knopf]], each of which published some of the books.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}

By 1939, HUAC's tactics seemed to work, and the newly elected Congress cut the WPA budget while increasing HUAC's funding. In January 1939, 6,000 people were laid off from Federal One. By July 1939, Congress voted to eliminate the Theatre Project, which had been criticized for communist influence. Federal sponsorship for the Federal Writers' Project ended in 1939. The program was permitted to continue under state sponsorship, with some federal employees, until 1943. In the last months of the FWP's operation, Henry Alsberg was fired.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}

He continued to work past his firing date in order to meet contractual arrangements with the publishers of three upcoming ''American Guide'' books. By the time of his departure in 1939, the FWP had published 321 works; hundreds more remained in various stages of publication. Some were published in the years leading up to 1943 under the renamed Writers' Program. Others were never completed. Over the lifetime of the FWP and the Writers' Program, 10,000 people were estimated to be employed.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Henry Alsberg: The Driving Force of the New Deal's Federal Writer's Project.|last=Rubenstein DeMasi|first=Susan|publisher=McFarland and Co.|year=2016|isbn=978-1476626017|location=Jefferson, NC|page=221}}</ref>

In the 1937 musical ''[[The Cradle Will Rock]]'', funded by the Federal Theater Project, composer [[Marc Blitzstein]] incorporated some of opponents' efforts to prevent this production.