01 A Giant Listening Project

The People's Recorder

Episode Summary:

In the depths of the Great Depression, the U.S government hired out-of-work writers and laid-off reporters and sent them out to record the stories of all kinds of Americans. Dubbed the Federal Writers’ Project, historians have called the program a giant "listening project."

In this introductory episode, host Chris Haley sets the stage, laying out 1930s America, the New Deal, and the cultural forces that both supported and opposed the Writers’ Project. We meet the agency’s national director Henry Alsberg and a handful of its writers across the country, including Zora Neale Hurston, Studs Terkel and Ralph Ellison. We also dig into the key questions that are still debated in public forums today: What history gets told? And who gets to tell it?

Speakers:

Scott Borchert, author

David Bradley, novelist

Douglas Brinkley, historian

Tameka Hobbs, historian

David Kipen, author

Dena Epstein, daughter of federal writer Hilda Polacheck

Studs Terkel, oral historian

Links and Resources:

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project

Born to Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project

Author Scott Borchert on the Federal Writers’ Project and the WPA guidebooks

Article on Library of Congress symposium on The Millions

Further Reading:

Soul of a People by David A. Taylor

Republic of Detours by Scott Borchert

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

California in the 1930s by David Kipen

Hard Times by Studs Terkel

First-Person America by Ann Banks

Henry Alsberg by Susan DeMasi

Long Past Slavery by Catherine A. Stewart

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editors: Steve Klingbiel and Ethan Oser

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Karen Simon, Robert Mirabello, Gary Hogan and Vince Brown

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives

New York Public Library

Swing Time (RKO, 1936)

Smithsonian Folkways

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Florida Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

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