Revisiting the American Guide Series (Again): Around the U.S. With Saul Bellow and John Steinbeck
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 07.15.08 | 5:31 PM ET
They’re among the now-legendary writers who contributed to the American Guide Series, a product of the Federal Writers’ Project during the Great Depression. The project put writers to work creating guides to U.S. states, regions and cities. In the last few years, the guides have seen “a resurgence of interest,” according to New York Times writer William Yardley.
Douglas Brinkley also wrote in the Times about the renewed interest in the project back in 2003—we blogged about it then, too.
This time around, though, the Times has capitalized on technological developments, using interactive maps, audio and images to tell stories with compelling depth. The first installment of the new series focuses on a trip through Washington.
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
David Taylor 07.21.08 | 6:53 PM ET
Good post. For those interested, a new television documentary on the Writers’ Project is nearing completion (Douglas Brinkley is one of the featured commentators), exploring that experience through the WPA writers in Illinois, New York, Florida, Idaho, and several more states, with the writers including Studs Terkel, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and John Cheever. It’s titled Soul of a People.
The companion book will be published by Wiley & Sons in early 2009.