Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers’ Project ed. by Sara Rutkowski (review)

Reviewed by: Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers' Project ed. by Sara Rutkowski Deanna M. Gillespie Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers' Project. Edited by Sara Rutkowski. (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2022. Pp. xiv, 270. Paper, 30. 95, ISBN 978-1-62534-699-5; cloth, 90. 00, ISBN 978-1-62534-700-8. ) Beginning in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration introduced a dizzying array of programs designed to address the nation's economic crisis. Within this constellation, the Federal Writers' Project (FWP), founded in 1935, employed more than six thousand writers, sociologists, historians, ethnographers, and educators to "tell the stories of American lives" (p. 2). When the project ended in 1943, local units had produced a prodigious set of notes, recordings, studies, and creative works "that showed Americans the pluralist society that the country had become" (p. 2). Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers' Project takes a new look at the FWP with "a sample of ongoing research" from different interdisciplinary perspectives (p. 2). Organized into three parts, the edited collection offers insights into the project's inner workings as well as its broader legacy. Rewriting America successfully situates the FWP in the turbulent 1930s, when New Deal reformers advocated for a more inclusive definition of American, labor reformers directly challenged American capitalism, and conservative forces organized to root out communist influence and shore up traditional views of American nationalism. Contributing authors demonstrate that this context directly influenced the FWP. Sue Rubenstein Demasi effectively describes FWP director Henry Alsberg's ongoing efforts to navigate fraught waters to document American lives, a mandate that necessarily required inclusion of marginalized Americans' experiences. Jerrold Hirsch examines how the FWP's Living Lore units went about this work. Under B. A. Botkin's direction, these units collected and recorded folklore from diverse communities across the country, expanding the meaning of American and of folklore. An inclusive definition of American had radical—even revolutionary—implications, particularly in the hands of Black, Hispanic, and Asian American writers, as aptly shown in chapters by Deborah Mutnick, Kathi King, Sara Rutkowski, and Greg Robinson and James Sun. Other chapters examine how internal tensions blunted the project's radical potential. As Adam Arenson, Diana Noreen Rivera, and Racheal Harris argue, state and End Page 454 city guides documented unique geography, culture, and history. However, in order to encourage tourism, writers often romanticized or omitted the experiences of marginalized groups. Rewriting America makes a compelling case for the FWP's continued relevance. Each chapter draws intriguing connections to the 2008 recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and renewed debates about American identity and the government's role in relation to the humanities and the arts. Contributing authors also see FWP fingerprints in specific places and works. Racheal Harris describes how the FWP's romanticized and sensationalized tales about New Orleans resonate in today's walking tours despite historical inaccuracies. Robert Singer contrasts the FWP guide's depiction of Coney Island as a place of respite and escape with more recent film depictions of residents seemingly trapped in the island's working-class culture. Maiko Mine argues that Ernest J. Gaines's close attention to the wording and diction of formerly enslaved people in the FWP's slave narrative collection gives Gaines's novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (New York, 1971) its unique authenticity. In the final chapter, Sara Rutkowski notes that much of the FWP collection is not yet digitized. Researchers willing to comb through the archives are likely to uncover new sources, like her own discovery of Ralph Ellison's notes documenting children's rhymes in 1930s Harlem. Rewriting America's interdisciplinary approach challenges readers to adopt different lenses and analytical frameworks. However, as editor Rutkowski argues, this is the point. Like the FWP, this collection is "a collaboration, a polyphony of voices" (p. 2). Overall, the collection provides a useful overview of this significant New Deal program, offers a detailed look at the writers who influenced—and were influenced by—the FWP, and brings the project into the present. Deanna M. Gillespie University of North Georgia Copyright © 2024 The Southern Historical Association