Author: Tina Bucuvalas
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617031402
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
An overview of the traditional, changing folklife from a vibrant southern state

Author: Gregory Hansen
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817315535
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
This biography of 97-year-old fiddler Richard Seaman, who grew up in Kissimmee Park, Florida, relies on oral history and folklore research to define the place of musicianship and storytelling in the state's history from one artist's perspective.

Author: Scott Borchert
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374719055
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice | Winner of the New Deal Book Award An immersive account of the New Deal project that created state-by-state guidebooks to America, in the midst of the Great Depression—and employed some of the biggest names in American letters The plan was as idealistic as it was audacious—and utterly unprecedented. Take thousands of hard-up writers and put them to work charting a country on the brink of social and economic collapse, with the aim of producing a series of guidebooks to the then forty-eight states—along with hundreds of other publications dedicated to cities, regions, and towns—while also gathering reams of folklore, narratives of formerly enslaved people, and even recipes, all of varying quality, each revealing distinct sensibilities. All this was the singular purview of the Federal Writers’ Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration founded in 1935 to employ jobless writers, from once-bestselling novelists and acclaimed poets to the more dubiously qualified. The FWP took up the lofty goal of rediscovering America in words and soon found itself embroiled in the day’s most heated arguments regarding radical politics, racial inclusion, and the purpose of writing—forcing it to reckon with the promises and failures of both the New Deal and the American experiment itself. Scott Borchert’s Republic of Detours tells the story of this raucous and remarkable undertaking by delving into the experiences of key figures and tracing the FWP from its optimistic early days to its dismemberment by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. We observe notable writers at their day jobs, including Nelson Algren, broke and smarting from the failure of his first novel; Zora Neale Hurston, the most widely published Black woman in the country; and Richard Wright, who arrived in the FWP’s chaotic New York City office on an upward career trajectory courtesy of the WPA. Meanwhile, Ralph Ellison, Studs Terkel, John Cheever, and other future literary stars found encouragement and security on the FWP payroll. By way of these and other stories, Borchert illuminates an essentially noble enterprise that sought to create a broad and inclusive self-portrait of America at a time when the nation’s very identity and future were thrown into question. As the United States enters a new era of economic distress, political strife, and culture-industry turmoil, this book’s lessons are urgent and strong.

Author: Catherine A. Stewart
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469626276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
From 1936 to 1939, the New Deal's Federal Writers' Project collected life stories from more than 2,300 former African American slaves. These narratives are now widely used as a source to understand the lived experience of those who made the transition from slavery to freedom. But in this examination of the project and its legacy, Catherine A. Stewart shows it was the product of competing visions of the past, as ex-slaves' memories of bondage, emancipation, and life as freedpeople were used to craft arguments for and against full inclusion of African Americans in society. Stewart demonstrates how project administrators, such as the folklorist John Lomax; white and black interviewers, including Zora Neale Hurston; and the ex-slaves themselves fought to shape understandings of black identity. She reveals that some influential project employees were also members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, intent on memorializing the Old South. Stewart places ex-slaves at the center of debates over black citizenship to illuminate African Americans' struggle to redefine their past as well as their future in the face of formidable opposition. By shedding new light on a critically important episode in the history of race, remembrance, and the legacy of slavery in the United States, Stewart compels readers to rethink a prominent archive used to construct that history.

Author: Gregory Hansen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 722

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Florida
Languages : en
Pages : 598

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Folklore
Languages : en
Pages : 526

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: Jeutonne Brewer
Publisher: Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press
ISBN:
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book Here

Book Description
A bibliography of the Federal Writer's Project of the Works Project Administration (WPA), including sections on works about the project, publications produced by the project, a chronology of the WPA with a list of its projects, and lists of writers who worked with the project. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author:
Publisher: U.S. Government Printing Office
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061749877
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
Zora Neale Hurston brings us Black America’s folklore as only she can, putting the oral history on the written page with grace and understanding. This new edition of Mules and Men features a new cover and a P.S. section which includes insights, interviews, and more. For the student of cultural history, Mules and Men is a treasury of Black America’s folklore as collected by Zora Neale Hurston, the storyteller and anthropologist who grew up hearing the songs and sermons, sayings and tall tales that have formed and oral history of the South since the time of slavery. Set intimately within the social context of Black life, the stories, “big old lies,” songs, voodoo customs, and superstitions recorded in these pages capture the imagination and bring back to life the humor and wisdom that is the unique heritage of Black Americans.