On July 7, 2021, the New York Times published a guest editorial by Scott Borchert, the author of a history of the Federal Writers’ Project, Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America.” In his opinion piece, Borchert urged Congress to create a 21st century version of the Federal Writers’ Project. According to Borchert, “ … a new corps of unemployed and underemployed writers who, like their New Deal forebears, would fan out into our towns, cities, and countryside to observe the shape of American life. They’d assemble, at the grass-roots level, a collective, national self-portrait, with an emphasis on the impact of the pandemic.” Borchert suggested that their work “would then be housed in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.”
American Eagle, color plate, American Wild Life Illustrated. WPA Federal Writers’ Project. Photographer: Austin Baylitts. NYC Municipal Library.
Much of the work of the original Federal Writers’ Projects was housed at the Library of Congress, but New York City was an exception. The New York City Unit, one of the most prolific of the Writers’ Projects, deposited their records at the Municipal Library. (The Library later transferred the collection to the Municipal Archives.)
In previous blogs we have highlighted the NYC Writers’ Project photograph collection, recipes from the Feeding the City manuscript, a description of the Fulton Fish Market, also from the Feeding the City manuscript, an article about Greenwich Village and the Square, and how the collection is a key resource for documenting the New Deal.
The Municipal Archives Federal Writers’ Project collection is divided into 64 series – one for each of the 62 books, plus administrative records, and the historical record survey. Of their published works, The New York City Guide is their most well-known. It has proved so durable and popular that it was re-published in 1966, 1982 and again in 1992. Most of the NYC Unit books relate to the Guide i.e. they are about some aspect of the City, such as Oddities of New York, Manhattan Mythology, Architecture of New York, Underneath New York, Maritime History of New York, etc.
But then there are some that are clearly not in that mold: Birds of the World, Who’s Who in the Zoo, American Wildlife, Natural History of the United States, etc. The administrative record series of the collection is not very extensive, and we may never know why assignments to the New York project writers extended well beyond articles about the City. Perhaps it was their access to world-class libraries, or maybe it was the abundance of writing talent in New York, or maybe it was the enthusiastic support for the project by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, but the result was hundreds of deeply researched, clearly written articles and manuscripts. They are timeless, even reading them now, almost a century later.
Title page, American Wild Life Illustrate. WPA Federal Writers’ Project, 1940. NYC Municipal Library.
This week we will take a look at one of the non-New York City books, American Wild Life, Illustrated. The frontispiece states, “Compiled by the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the City of New York,” and sponsored by “The Mayor the City of New York the Honorable Fiorello H. LaGuardia.”
The introduction explains that American Wild Life, Illustrated was the fourth of a series of books written by the zoological division of the New York City WPA Writers’ Project. Its purpose was to offer “. . . in popular style the life histories of American mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes.”
The Introduction begins with this prescient passage:
“In the great Western desert of the United States the earth’s thin, green, life-supported mantle has worn through so that the gaunt framework of our planet shows through. Silica, mica, borax, salt and alkali lie about on the floor of the land, which is corrugated like a great washboard and from which the water has long since evaporated.
Until 1935 this desert, which occupies so many square miles of the West, in the minds of most Americans was little more than the tedious stretch of country between the populous and industrial East and the luxuriant, semitropical fruit-growing land of the Pacific slopes. In that year the desert all at once served dramatic warning that it was on the march. The skies became filled with wind-blown topsoil blotting out the sun even as far east as New York City. Pictures of bony cattle dying of thirst or dust pneumonia found their way into the daily papers. New pioneers hastily left farmhouses crushed and buried by silt in the submarginal lands of the dust bowl, to find a grudging refuge in California or Oregon.
Years before that, the buffalo and the mule deer had disappeared from these great plains; now humans were leaving it. The sight of the weary, dustlined faces of the courageous men and women who brought home to the American public the conviction that conservation was not merely a luxury advocated by lovers of birds and beasts, or by faddists, but was in fact one of the most vital and immediate concerns of our Nation as a whole.”
Although this passage references the devastating impact of the drought that ravaged the Great Plains in the 1930s, it is echoed in today’s headlines about the parched Western United States.
The book is divided into sections: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. Here are excerpts from the ‘birds’ chapters:
Northern Blue Jay. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
Blue Jay
“The Handsome crested blue jay has a bad reputation for robbing the eggs of other birds, for attacking small poultry and, occasionally, for eating its own eggs. Moreover, the blue jays seem constantly to be quarreling with each other and with other birds. Wherever these saucy little fellows may be, their presence can be detected by a querulous screaming and chattering.
Yet they are not without social graces. They are most attentive to their young, and they take good care of their blind, aged, and infirm.
They have courage tempered by prudence. A flock of blue jays does not hesitate to attack a screech owl or even a hawk, often with success; but if the larger bird seems to be getting the better of them, they dive into a dense thicket where their enemy cannot follow.
In summer the blue jays inhabit the woods of the eastern States, where they live on insects, fruits, and nuts. They store up large quantities for winter use, but by the time cold weather has set in, often forget the hiding place and move closer to human habitation, where food is more plentiful. They have a decided taste for corn and other grains.
Jays are remarkable mimics. They can imitate the cry of a hawk, the buzz of a saw, and event the human voice. One bird caused great confusion on a farm by “sicking” the dog on the cow.
The blue jay usually nests in an evergreen tree, building a new nest each year from five to fifty feet above the ground. The nest is built of sticks and twigs and lined with bark and feathers. The sticks are never taken from the ground but always from the trees. Four to five pale-green eggs are laid. Jays defending their nest are well able to drive away a cat or a tree squirrel. Two subspecies related to the northern blue jay are the Florida blue jay of the South Atlantic and gulf States and Semple’s blue jay of southern and central Florida.
Cardinal
“The swift flash of red, visible for the fleetest of instants, heralds the presence of the cardinal, inhabitant of the eastern portion oof the United States. This beautifully red, black-hatted bird builds its loose nest among the thickets where it believes its two to four eggs will be safe. The cardinals are a family of exceedingly cheerful, active, and industrious disposition. Their charm and enthusiasm and their melodious call make them welcome visitors wherever they show their pretty heads. A relentless foe of numerous insect pests, they also eat harmful weed seeds. Four subspecies are found in the United States.”
Screech Owls. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
Screech Owls
“The cry of the screech owl is not a screech at all but rather a mournful wail. In the South the people call it the shivering owl because of its quavering whistle. This ten-inch bird is said to remain with the same mate for years. Their eggs are frequently laid in out-buildings or in man-made bird boxes. The nest itself is a slipshod affair of sticks, grass, leaves, and rubbish strewn about in a careless manner.
Screech owls are adept fishermen even in winter when they catch their meals through holes in the ice. Their chief food, however, is insects, according to dr. A. K. Fisher. They also feed on crawfish toads, frogs, and lizards and on the whole are useful to agriculture, doing a great deal of good.”
The author Borchert concluded his opinion piece about the benefit of a new Federal Writer’s Project: “The project’s documentary work would make an invaluable contribution to the nation’s understanding of itself. Think of the vast treasury that would accrue in the Library of Congress, forming an indelible record of how ordinary Americans live: not only how we’ve weathered the ordeal of the pandemic and mourned the dead, but also how we work and relax, how we think about the burdens and triumphs of our pasts, how we envision the future.”
Perhaps if the Writers’ Project is renewed, New York City would again be the exception – for both the scope of its assignments, and the repository of its work. The New York City Municipal Archives stands ready to once again host the story of America.