Federal Project Number One 

FEDERAL MUSIC PROJECT (FMP)

Dr.  Nikolai Sokoloff, conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1919 - 1933, served as the FMP Director; he appointed a staff of five Regional Directors and 23 State Directors.  The FMP sought to employ musicians from across the country to bring music to the masses in every conceivable venue:  opera stages, concert halls, elementary and high schools, community centers, local parks, county parades, etc.  The majority of the concerts were free or at nominal prices (50 cents and below).  Audiences revelled to the sounds of Brahms, Beethoven, and  Stravinsky and danced along with local swing orchestras and country bands.  FMP workers also: 1) composed and arranged music of all genres, 2) copied musical scores for schools and universities to use, 3) cataloged and recorded local and regional music, and 4) provided music lessons to hundreds of thousands of adults and children.  

At its height, the FMP employed about 16,000 musicians and provided entertainment and musical education to millions of Americans.  Sokoloff resigned in May 1939 in objection to budget cuts and his stated preference for a more European-centric (classical music) vision for the FMP.  Later that year the FMP was recast as the WPA Music Program; the program and the WPA would end in June 1943.

FEDERAL THEATRE PROJECT (FTP)

The playwright and theatrical producer, Hallie Flanagan, served as the Director for the FTP; she intended to make theater “so excellent in quality, so low in cost and so vital to the communities involved” that it would sustain without Federal subsidy.  It sought both new audiences and new venues:  hospitals, schools, prisons, deserted theaters, unoccupied warehouses, etc.  The FTP produced everything from classic dramas (Shakespeare) to children's plays to vaudeville to dinner theater.  In addition, listeners enjoyed radio productions via The Federal Theatre of the Air.  

The FTP's Living Newspaper initiative garnered much acclaim and attention:  writers presented the news of the day via plays that combined cultural and social criticism with audience interaction.  However, certain play subjects--fascism, civil rights, Marxist theory, the anti-war movement--stirred ire in the halls of Congress.  Due in part to such controversy, the FTP was defunded and abolished in 1939.     

During its four year run the FTP provided employment to over 12,000 actors, directors, playwrights, designers, artists, promoters, stage hands, etc.  It also staged over 1,200 plays, boasting future luminaries such as Orson Welles, John Houseman, Burt Lancaster, Joseph Cotten and E.G. Marshall.  

FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT (FWP)

Henry Alsberg, a playwright and author, served as the first Director of the FWP; John D. Newson replaced Alsberg in 1939 upon his firing.  Most notably, the target audience for FWP employment was anyone who thought they could write, including unemployed novelists, poets, journalists, teachers, college students, librarians, etc.  Much of the output focused on non-fiction work since major research projects could take years to complete and produce.

A quartet of FWP programs best represent its output and contributions to American culture and literature, specifically: 1) its 1937 publication, American Stuff: An Anthology of Prose and Verse, 2) the American Guide series that prepared engaging, informative, and oftentimes humorous travel guides of states, cities, and historic sites, 3) the Life in America series that chronicled American folklore and rural communities, and 4) the Slave Narrative Project that captured the oral histories of over 2,000 former slaves.  

From 1935 to its close in early 1943, the FWP produced more than 1,200 works, ranging from pamphlets to short stories to magazine articles to books to  voluminous handbooks.  It employed about 5,000 people on average and at its peak had 6,000 people on its roster.  Writers from the ranks of the FWP included John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Studs Terkel, Eudora Welty, and Zora Neal Hurston.

HISTORICAL RECORDS SURVEY (HRS)

Originally part of the FWP and under the direction of Dr. Luther H Evans, the HRS was transferred to the WPA and established as a stand-alone division in July 1939 (via the Reorganization Act of 1939).  The Survey was organized at the state level; a state supervisor assigned and managed the workload.  

The Survey of County Records represented the Survey's largest program; it entailed the location, identification, arrangement and description of an immense volume of public records in county archives.  Other significant efforts included the Survey of Federal Archives (performed in conjunction with the National Archives), the Survey of Church Records, the American Imprints Inventory, and the Microfilming of Public Records Survey (of county and state records).

Over the course of its operations, the HRS employed close to 10,000 workers.  It ended in February 1943, yet another New Deal agency that fell victim to the war effort.  However, historians, archivists, genealogists and family historians enjoy the fruits of HRS efforts to this very day.