Today in History - 1935

Congress approved the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Created by President Franklin Roosevelt to relieve the economic hardship of the Great Depression, this national works program (called the Works Project Administration beginning in 1939) employed more than 8.5 million people on 1.4 million public projects before it was disbanded in 1943.

The Federal Writers' Project was one of several projects within the WPA targeted to people with skills in the arts. Among the well-known writers employed by the project were Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, May Swenson, Margaret Walker, and Richard Wright.

During the Project's early years, the Federal Writers produced a series of state guidebooks that offer a flavorful sampling of life in the United States. Now considered classics of Americana, these guides remain the Federal Writers' Project's best-known undertaking. But, the Federal Writers' Project also left a hidden legacy. In the late 1930s, Federal Writers recorded the life stories of more than 10,000 men and women from a variety of regions, occupations, and ethnic groups. Nearly 3,000 of these manuscripts are now available online as part of the American Memory collection American Life Histories, 1936-1940.