The WPA and Death Valley in the 1930s

Road Workers & Guidebook Writers put the National Monument on the Map
by Cheri Rae

In February, 1935, desperate writers had taken to the streets, demanding some sort of government assistance. “Children Need Books. Writers Need a Break. We Demand Projects,” read the sign of one picketer. By spring, Congress passed the Emergency Relief Act of 1935, and FDR signed an Executive Order creating the WPA.

The WPA was a bold, innovative concept designed to put unemployed creative types—writers, actors, artists, and musicians—back to work. Several arts projects fell under the supervision of the Works Projects Administration, including the Federal Writers’ Project.

The project served as a lifeline for the writing community which was particularly had-hit during the Depression. Magazines virtually stopped buying articles; royalty payments nearly dried up and few new contracts were commissioned. Yet the writers still had families to support, rent to pay, and other living expenses to meet.

On the applications for employment, many writers revealed their desperation. One pleaded for a job noting, “The wolf is at my door.” Another completed the questions:

Kind of work: Will accept any position

Salary: Enough to make a living on

At present: Broke.

One of the primary tasks of the Federal Writers’ Project was to create a series of guidebooks entitled the American Guide Series. The books were the first written by and for Americans specifically intended to define and describe the land, people and culture of America. Director of the Federal Writers’ Project, Henry Alsberg, described the task, “A genuine, valuable and objective contribution to the understanding of American life.”

After much debate among administrators, the guidebook format was reached—a compromise between chamber of commerce-type boosterism and encyclopedia-like listings of information. Each of the books in this American Guide Series featured essays on the land, its history and cultural characteristics, along with meticulously researched driving tours.

Never before had a nation attempted to subsidize the production of literature—or any arts projects—at such a level. At its height in 1936, the Project employed more than 6,500 writers, editors, proofreaders, and fact-checkers.

Although the officials policy of the Project was to insist on anonymity, several writers who worked for the Project later emerged as among the most significant voices of contemporary America—Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, John Cheever, Loren Eiseley, Conrad Aiken and Kenneth Rexroth.

It seems no one was every totally pleased with the Project. Many writers considered the writing of guidebooks beneath them; most became frustrated with administrative efforts to quantify their productivity and amount of time they were required to spend on the projects. Guidebook writing left little time or energy for mor creative pursuits.

One revealed his resentment when he wrote, “A tour is a tour is a tour…a main tour, side tour, well-paved tour, graveled tour….” Another penned the “Psalm of Touring”:    Tell me not in mournful numbers
                    That a tour is but a dream
                    That the highway never blunders
                    And maps are just what they seem.

Despite overwhelmingly positive critical reviews of the work produced, the public perceived the Project as an expensive and wasteful use of their tax dollars. By 1939, the WPA was increasingly under fire. Headlines screamed “Nation Described at $1 a Word.” Some critics speculated that the initials WPA stood for “We Poke Along.” The nation’s press published charges of incompetence at high levels and disputed the political and cultural content of the guides.

Finally, Congress got into the act with the Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities. The Project was termed a “red nest” that published “insidious propaganda” and promoted “class hatred.”

As a result, loyalty oaths were demanded of workers. Federal funding was slashed; it finally ceases in the spring of 1939. (State and local funding allowed some projects to continue, but many more were completed, but never published.) When America entered World War II, the WPA turned to war themes: pamphlets detailed civil defense procedures, how to plant a home victory garden, and accounts of military history. Even state and local funding ended in 1942.

Although several in-progress projects were halted before publication, in just over seven years, the Project produced more than a thousand publications, including full-length books, pamphlets and booklets—at a cost of $27 million.

That so much more is known about Death Valley CCC workers than their WPA counterparts is probably not surprising. It has to do with the nature of work. Unlike grading roads, digging wells and constructing buildings, the work of writing hardly seems like work to those who don’t do it themselves. While CCC workers have been hailed as heroes, WPA workers labored in obscurity.

FDR’s vision of the experimental Project had been to create a “literature of nationhood.” The American Guide Series has been called the “biggest, fastest, most original research job in the history of the world.” In his American travelogue, Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck notes, “The complete set comprises the most comprehensive account of the United States ever got together.”