Remembering America: A Sampler of the Wpa American Guide Series

by Archie Hobson

More than 500 excerpts from the Federal Writer's Project travel guides, along with vintage photographs, focus on the lives and surroundings of Americans from all fifty states as they cautiously but confidently faced the Depression

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Travel

391 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I looked into this topic after reading The Truth According To Us by Annie Barrows. In it, one of the main characters is a young woman hired to work on the American Guide Series. The American Guide Series was a WPA project in the 1930s and early 1940s, which not only provided jobs and experience to American writers struggling through the Depression, but also created a public relations campaign to promote road travel. All 48 states and Alaska were covered in separate books, along with many books of the major cities. This book presents a potpourri of short essays from the whole collection. It's divided into sections The Land and its Improvements, Work, Everyday Life, The People, Moving About, Higher Callings, and The End. It presents a picture of pre-WWII America and is quite interesting.

[Ginny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful! I began by reading from the beginning, then discovered the index by state and read from every state in which I'd lived. Discovered some fascinating histories that had occurred so near to where I had lived and wasn't aware. Frustrating that these individual books are so rare. America is so amazing!

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does your partner swipe books while you are reading them?
Everytime I put Remembering America: A Sampler Of The Wpa American Guide Series down my darling husband picked it up - and read the funny bits to me - it was just like our early dating years :-).
This is a delightful collection of excerpts best read in short bursts. I think it would make a great audiobook, too.