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Workers of the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida (Compilers)Biblio.com

Miami and Dade County; Including Miami Beach and Coral Gables Planning Your Vacation in Florida

1941ref. 90215Northpoint NY: Bacon Percy & Daggett 1941. Presumed First Edition First printing. Hardcover. Good. xx 202 pages. Illustrations. Maps. Chronology. Bibliography. Index. No dust jacket present. Some cover wear noted. Writing inside both covers. Some page soiling noted. This is one of the American Guide series. The cover title is "Guide to Miami and Environs". Foreword by Marjory Stoneman Douglas. The books in the series were to contain accurate and thorough accounts of American history according to a letter to State directors on the project. Each book's primary purpose was to not only outline the history of the individual states but the following as well: Geography Agriculture Tourist attractions Ethnic groups ArchitectureArts and Industry. Three different types of guides were published: state regional and city guides. Each guide had its own distinct features but followed the same uniform structure. The city guides had the most narrow scope out of all three types as the focus was on a single location. Because of this their maps could be in the greatest detail not only giving an overview of a city's layout but individual neighborhoods as well. City Guides highlighted points of special interest in greater detail. In the Philadelphia guide sites such as Carpenters' Hall and Girard College an-all boys boarding school in the city's northern section each had several pages dedicated to them. The maps that were included in each book added value to them as material objects and not just literature. With the increasing mobility afforded by the number of Americans who owned automobiles the guides served as reliable and durable resources for travelers moving throughout the country. The American Guide Series includes books and pamphlets published from 1937 to 1941 under the auspices of the Federal Writers' Project FWP a Depression-era program that was part of the larger Works Progress Administration in the United States. The American Guide Series books were compiled by the FWP but printed by individual states and contained detailed histories of each of the then 48 states of the Union with descriptions of every major city and town. The series not only detailed the histories of the 48 states but provided insight to their cultures as well. In total the project employed over 6000 writers. The format was uniform comprising essays on the state's history and culture descriptions of its major cities automobile tours of important attractions and a portfolio of photographs. Many books in the project have been updated by private companies or republished without updating. Although not then a state a guide for Alaska was published and also for Puerto Rico but not for Hawaii. If there had been room in Rocinante I would have packed the W.P.A. Guides to the States all forty-eight volumes of them.The complete set comprises the most comprehensive account of the United States ever got together and nothing since has approached it." — John Steinbeck Travels with Charley 1962. As part of the Federal Writers' Project established under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 and the Works Progress Administration over 6500 men and women were employed around the country as writers collecting stories interviews and photographs on a variety of subjects. The project attracted many unemployed writers and artists offering a wage of twenty dollars a week. President Franklin D. Roosevelt enlisted Henry Alsberg a journalist and playwright to head the project. As part of this the FWP developed and published a series of books that served as guides to the 48 existing states. Each book's primary purpose was to not only outline the history of the individual state but its culture and geography as well. Their predecessor Baedeker's Handbook for Travelers: United States lacked much of what was needed to give a picture of America during the 1930s. Alsberg insisted that the new series of books paint a picture of American culture as a whole and celebrate the nation's diversity. From 1937 to 1941 thousands of writers set out around the country to capture America's culture conducting fieldwork interviewing citizens and observing and recording folk traditions and local customs. Writers from all over the country sought to capture American culture during the Great Depression a difficult task given the dire circumstances. Alsberg tasked Benjamin A. Botkin a folklorist and scholar with running the folklore division of the project. Botkin was responsible for coordinating and managing the writers a task that was too large for Alsberg to handle as the volume of work coming in was plentiful for the project. In this role Botkin not only influenced the writers' folklore division but also had a great influence on their coverage of culture. The project's beginnings did not come without challenges. During its infancy various writers' organizations pressured the project because of the parameters that were set by the FWP. With the project bringing many established writers back into the workforce the Authors' Guild of America became aggressive in the pursuit of relaxing guidelines for the writers and also developed a disdain for the project's employment of writers with a lack of experience. With the FWP's main focus on creating jobs for the unemployed the Author's Guild and organizations similar to it continued to criticize the amateurism of many writers on the project. The solution to this critique was a simple one: find enough work for all of the writers. The roles of the writers enlisted to work on the project not only included their initial role as writers but also as photographers geographers and cartographers allowing the creation of additional white collar jobs. Bacon, Percy & Daggett hardcover

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