Literature, Culture and Society in Depression Era America: Archives of the Federal Writers' Project
Literature, Culture and Society in Depression Era America: Archives of the Federal Writers' Project:
The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was the most controversial and contentious program of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), an integral part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal." This bold, imaginative and wide-ranging enterprise is the key to understanding literature, culture and society in America during the Depression era.
This collection presents the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) publications of all 47 states involved in the project, which ran from 1933 to 1943. Forming the most complete collection of publications from all participating states, this archive contains more than 450 individual items, many of which are typed or mimeographed and received only limited circulation. The FWP was a part of "Federal One," the arts project established by the WPA to cover music, theater, art and writers. The WPA recognized that steelworkers, bricklayers, share-croppers, and factory workers were not the only section of the economy hit by the Depression. Academics, post-graduate students, journalists, playwrights and novelists were also unemployed. In five years the WPA spent millions, provided literary training and, more significantly, the opportunity for participants to observe, eat and write.
Reaction to the FWP was intense. Viewed as a courageous humanitarian answer to the issue of the homeless and hungry on the one hand, it was considered a counter to the threat of Fascism on the other and branded "Communist" and "Un-American" by the Dies Committee of 1938 and the Woodrum Committee of 1939. The Communist Party, however, thought it was counter-revolutionary.
This unique collection of the publications of the FWP provides scholars with an extremely lively and detailed picture of life in America during the Great Depression. Almost every aspect of life is covered from Industry and Labor Relations, through Welfare and Government, to Sports and Hobbies.
The Shakespeare Collection
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was perhaps the greatest dramatist the world has ever seen. The Shakespeare Collection contextualizes the legacy of this great poet and playwright, containing a selection of over 200 prompt books (annotated working texts of stage managers and company prompters) from the 17th to 20th centuries, the extensive diaries of Shakespeare enthusiast Gordon Crosse documenting 500 UK performances from 1890 to 1953, the First Folio and Quartos, editions and adaptations of Shakespeare's works from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, more than 80 works Shakespeare is thought to have been familiar with, as well as works composed by Shakespeare's contemporaries.
The Southern Literary Messenger: Literature of the Old South
The Southern Literary Messenger: Literature of the Old South
The Southern Literary Messenger enjoyed an impressive thirty-year run and was in its time the South's most important literary periodical. Avowedly a southern publication, the Southern Literary Messenger was also the one literary periodical published that was widely circulated and respected among a northern readership. Throughout much of its run, the journal avoided sectarian political and religious debates, but, the sectional crisis of the 1850s gave the contents of the magazine an increasingly partisan flavor. By 1860 the magazine's tone had shifted to a defiantly proslavery and pro-South stance. Scholars and students of history, journalism, and literature can discern much about how the hot-button topics of slavery and secession were presented in southern intellectual and literary culture in the early stages of the Civil War.