Introduction

As a part of the New Deal, the federal government established projects to employ writers, artists, and thespians who had experienced a great deal of hardship as a result of the Great Depression. Ultimately, the Federal One Project did not intend just to put artists and musicians to work, but, as discussed by Benjamin Filene, it also attempted to establish an official culture of the United States. For a country predicated on diversity, it can be hard to encapsulate such a large nation into just one culture. So, there were often regional or state-wide attempts to capture a culture through things such as the American Guide series. Still, the 1930s was rife with racial tensions, especially in the American South, where segregation and Jim Crow dominated. With this in mind, the following exhibit examines the role that African Americans played in the Federal One Project. The historical question is: How did Federal One Projects depict African Americans? The exhibit uses distance reading, image glitching, and the inclusion of sound to explore this question. 

Works Cited

Filene, Benjamin. Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2008.