The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers' Project, 1935-1943

by Jerre Mangione

Almost 7000 authors—including Richard Wright, John Cheever, and Saul Bellow—were employed by this federal program, which saved many literary careers during the Depression and which also produced the best state guidebooks ever written.

Genres: History

Paperback

First published December 31, 1972

Reviews

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm leaving Goodreads. This review is now available on LibraryThing, user name CSRodgers.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jerre Mangione begins this 1998 study when, almost sixty years before, he met with none other than the First Lady to discuss the future of the WPA Writers Project. The interview proved a formality, for already thanks to Red-baiting, anti-intellectualism, and suspicion of any facts that might upset the fat-cats, FDR's New Deal scheme to hire over six thousand (supposedly, as lots of lying enabled some conniving or desperate applicants to pose as paupers) contributors to compose over three hundred state, regional, and specialized guides to America.

There's necessary detail which scholars will appreciate as to the characters behind this entity. Perhaps overly so for such as myself, who's interested in the presentation more than the preparation. Yet it's a reminder of perpetual debates since. Boondoggle, hot air, a cover for the proletariat revolution, a sinecure for the lazy campus protester, a way to type one's Great Novel on Uncle Sam's pre-Roosevelt thin dime? He takes you through the various stages over six years of haphazard planning, fumbled fieldwork, and idealistic visions, amidst cynicism galore.

Mangione published this chronicle after many who labored on the scheme had passed away. But luckily, enough were then as young as he, so testimony from firsthand participants could still be documented. Certainly, as David Kipen notes in the U. of Cal. Press early 2010s reprints of the major entries among the Golden State's estimable volumes (see my reviews), referring to Mangione's own account in turn, the prodigious drinking among the San Francisco staffers might be outmatched only by the larger crew of Gotham City’s (real life) misfit scribes, bitter Trotskyists, and backpedaling Stalinists who, after all, gave a bible-thumping Texas congressman the chance to call out this perceived waste of taxpayer funds as agitprop.

Although nuanced perusal of Mangione's aptly titled analysis proves that the deeply embedded Left did burrow into thousands of pages attesting to the populist tone, the fervent scrutiny, and the sassy exuberance which can be discerned within these American Guides.to the states, alongside folklore, African-American (Wright, Ellison, Hurston among those hired on), ethnic, municipal, avocational, and thematic supplements, there's ample space allotted for equally persistent cussed streaks of contrarian, anti-authoritarian, gossipy, and downright patriotic strains mingled, churning, and competing. Whitman's "barbaric yawp," these demonstrate the partial realization of an ambitious national enterprise, cut short by ideological factions, booze, party machines (more often in Democratic constituencies), strikes, unions, incompetence, bureaucracy, goldbrickers. By the time the final state, Oklahoma, weighed in, Pearl Harbor would loom in less than a month.

[Joan Wetherell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s very interesting but I can’t finish the library copy. I will have to buy it from Thriftbooks. It was written 50 years ago when many of the original Writers Project were still alive. So à living history narrative.

[Vincent Lombardo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book received glowing reviews, and I knew a few people who read it and loved it. But I started this book many times and was never able to finish it. It just bored me!