When we sat down with Pen/Faulkner Award-winning author David Bradley (The Chaneysville Incident), we knew we were in for an unforgettable conversation.  Sharp, funny, and deeply thoughtful, he brought both wit and a grounded perspective to his take on the legacy of the Federal Writers’ Project.  But what resonated the most about our conversation was his lasting belief in the power of stories to reveal what the official record often leaves out.  

Now, that never-before-released conversation is now available for you to enjoy.  

00:00 Introduction by Andrea Kalin

02:23 Interview Start - The Great Depression

05:10 Federal Writers Project

08:00 Why Guidebooks?

10:50 A Community of Writers

13:00 Did the Guides Help Shape American Identity?

To hear the full interview, consider joining our Patreon Community at www.patreon.com/PeoplesRecorder

Additional Links:

Learn more about David Bradley

"The Chaneysville Incident" by David Bradley

Credits:

Director and Interviewer: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editor: Ethan Oser

Featuring Music by Pond5

For additional content, visit www.peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

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Today, we are sharing our never-before-released conversation with award-winning author Dagoberto Gilb.  We interviewed Dagoberto for our documentary Soul of a People and were immediately impressed with his way of cutting through pretense with a single line.  When we asked him if we could quote him in the outreach for the film, his reply was swift and dry: “Yes, to whatever I said, so long as I look brilliant.”  That’s Dagoberto – he disarms with wit, then follows with something unvarnished and true.  

In our conversation, Dagoberto reminds us that literature, just like life, is at its best when it insists on being true.  He isn’t interesting in polishing myths, and he has no patience for stereotypes and cliches.  Instead, he’s here to tell us what’s raw, lived and true.

To hear the full interview, consider joining our Patreon Community at just $5/month:

www.patreon.com/PeoplesRecorder

Additional Links:

Learn more about Dagoberto Gilb

"A Passing West" by Dagoberto Gilb

"New Testaments" by Dagoberto Gilb

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director and Interviewer: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editor: Ethan Oser

Featuring Music from Matt Cartonis and Pond5

For additional content, visit www.peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

winning historian and author Chris Haley.

EVENT LINK

The People’s Recorder launched in 2024 and won a 2025 Silver Signal Award for Best History Podcast. Using the 1930s Federal Writers’ Project as a lens to view our past, the podcast asks the questions: how does history get recorded and who gets to decide which history gets told? 

This special virtual event will build on the discussion started in the podcast, and will further explore the work and literary and cultural legacy of the Federal Writers’ Project in Nebraska.

Part of the WPA, the Federal Writers’ Project provided work for unemployed writers, editors, and other white-collar workers during the height of the Great Depression. The Writers’ Project had a mandate to produce state and city travel guides, and interview everyday citizens. 

It was perhaps the largest and most chaotic publishing venture in American history, and yet it produced over 200 publications, and its flagship travel guide series remains important for its firsthand views of life in America. The Nebraska guide was a notable success and state bestseller.

This moderated discussion will focus on the work of the Nebraska Writers’ Project and how that speaks to Nebraskans today. That includes the experiences of Rudolph Umland, a hardscrabble farmer turned editor, Weldon Kees, a hardware businessman’s son turned poet, and Ruby Wilson, a nurse who found a passion for recording first person history. We’ll also shine a light on acclaimed author of the Plains Mari Sandoz and University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor and founder of Prairie Schooner, Lowry Wimberly, whose influence was critical to the Project’s success.

This special event is produced with support from Humanities Nebraska in partnership with Prairie Schooner and Lincoln City Libraries.

Learn more at https://www.peoplesrecorder.info/humanities-ne

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Event Link - February 3rd at 1:30 pm EST/12:30 pm CST

Event Landing Page

The People's Recorder Episode 10: A Creative Incubator

Humanities Nebraska

Prairie Schooner

Lincoln City Libraries

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One of our favorite episodes to work on was “Episode 6: Native Historians do Stand-up” about the WPA project to preserve the Oneida language and history.  But that was not the first time we explored this story.  We first traveled to Oneida, conducting interviews and digging into archives, when we produced our documentary Soul of a People.  One of those interviews was with the remarkable Loretta Metoxen. 

Until her death in 2021, Metoxen was the Tribal Historian for the Oneida Nation, a position she served in for over two decades.  She was tasked with preserving, documenting and interpreting her people’s history, culture, and traditions.  Having learned directly from the WPA’s Oscar Archiquette, Metoxen is clear in her reflections on the groundbreaking work of the Oneida writers during the Depression and its huge impact today.  

To hear the full interview, consider joining our Patreon Community at www.patreon.com/PeoplesRecorder

Additional Links: 

Learn more about Loretta Metoxen

Oneida Nation Cultural Heritage Website

Oneida Books Rediscovered

Credits: 

Director: Andrea Kalin

Interviewer: Oliver Lukacs

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Interview Re-record and Editor: Ethan Oser

Featuring Music from the Oneida Singers and Pond5

For additional content, visit www.peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Studs Terkel was many things – a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, oral historian, radio legend, fiery populist, labor advocate and, above all, a master listener.  For 45 years, his Chicago radio show invited everyday people to share their stories – the kind of history that often gets forgotten. 

In 2006, we turned the tables and asked Studs to tell us his story.  This never-before-released interview was one of his last before his death at age 96.  Before we left, he signed our copy of his book about the Depression, Hard Times, with a simple message: “Keep up the good work.”   

And that’s what we’re trying to do with The People’s Recorder – carry forward Studs’ legacy of person-first storytelling.  

To hear the full interview, consider joining our Patreon Community at www.patreon.com/PeoplesRecorder

For just $5/month, you can have access to extended interviews, plus upcoming bonus episodes and AMA events. Support us on Patreon and keep these stories coming.

Additional Links: 

Learn more about Studs Terkel

Studs Terkel Radio Archives

"Working" by Studs Terkel

Credits: 

Host: Chris Haley

Director and Interviewer: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editor: Ethan Oser

Featuring Music from Pond5

For additional content, visit www.peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2006, award-winning filmmaker and producer Andrea Kalin sat down for an interview with bestselling author and renowned presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. Together, they discussed the social and political landscape of 1930s America, the Great Depression, and how the New Deal employed writers to document that unique moment in U.S. history. 

Now, for the first time ever, that insightful and inspiring conversation is available for you to enjoy. 

To hear the full interview, consider joining our Patreon Community at www.patreon.com/c/PeoplesRecorder.

For just $5/month, you can have access to extended interviews, exclusive bonus episodes and Ask Me Anything events. Support us on Patreon and help keep these stories coming. 

Credits: 

Director and Interviewer: Andrea Kalin 

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello 

Editor: Ethan Oser 

Featuring Music from Pond5 

For additional content, visit www.peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: ‪@peoplesrecorder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tune in for an important update on The People's Recorder!

Host Chris Haley shares the state of the podcast now in the wake of recent funding cuts and also the exciting plans we have coming up over the next few months, including a sneak preview of "Gospel of Fear," our trilogy of episodes about Congressman Martin Dies, the playbook he used to attack the WPA and the Federal Writers' Project, and how we're all still feeling the impact of that playbook today.

The People's Recorder is also now on Patreon! Support the podcast and help keep these stories coming and out in the world where they belong. Become a patron for only $5/month and receive access to exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, AMA events, and more!

For more information and to sign up, visit: www.patreon.com/peoplesrecorder

Image Description and Credit:

Protestors in Center City Philadelphia, 1939, staging a symbolic "funeral" for the Federal Writers' Project, a Works Progress Administration program soon to be gutted by federal budget cuts. From the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Episode Credits:

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editor: Ethan Oser

Featuring Music from Pond5

For additional content, visit www.peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episodes Summary:

A beautiful and powerful art exhibition is touring the country right now, called Pictures of Belonging, which explores three artists of Japanese descent - Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi and Miné Okubo.  The exhibition puts these artists and their work in their rightful place in the history of American art.  

For this bonus episode, producer and lead writer David Taylor visits the exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and shares his insights about Miné Okubo, who was featured in Episode 9: Is This Land Your Land?  She was a painter who was working with Diego Rivera on murals for the WPA when she was detained and sent to an incarceration camp during World War 2.  She used her artwork to bear witness to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war.  

Links and Resources:

Pictures of Belonging: Japanese American National Museum

Pictures of Belonging: Smithsonian American Art Museum

Citizen 13660 - a short film from the National Park Service

Sincerely, Miné Okubo - a short biography from the Japanese American National Museum

Further Reading:

Citizen 13360 by Miné Okubo

Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road by Greg Robinson

Peaceful Painter: Memoirs of an Issei Woman Artist by Hisako Hibi

The Other American Moderns: Matsura, Ishigaki, Nora, Hayakawa by ShiPu Wang

Credits:

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editor: Amy Young

Featuring music from Pond5

Produced with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Florida Humanities, Virginia Humanities, Wisconsin Humanities, California Humanities and Humanities Nebraska. 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted by Adam Carr and Dasha Kelly Hamilton, Human Powered focuses on the power of the humanities in Wisconsin's prisons. We wanted to share an episode from that terrific show with you today. 

People in prisons are cut off from their families, their communities, and in some cases their own feelings. Making art in prison can be a way to affirm your humanity in a place that is often dehumanizing. So, when organizers of an exhibit of prison art put out a call for submissions, they were flooded with responses from incarcerated artists working without support, formal programs or materials. This episode tells the story of that exhibit.

Guests: 

Joshua Gresl

John Tyson

Sarah Demerath

Debra Brehmer

​

Learn more about Human Powered at www.wisconsinhumanities.org/podcast

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In the 1930s, the notion of making an incubator for creativity in a region devastated by the Great Depression got tested in Nebraska. This episode looks at what happened there when the Writers’ Project came to town, through a group of creatives from contrasting backgrounds, including a hobo, a nurse and a hardware store poet – all under the watchful eye of a university professor and a celebrated novelist. 

Starting from chaos, they ignited a surprising alchemy and made the Lincoln office one of the most productive Writers’ Project hubs in the country. The Season 1 finale listens in as Americans face war clouds on the horizon, and a national radio show asks, “Can we count on youth to uphold the American Way?”

Speakers:

Stephen Cloyd, librarian and historian

Marilyn Holt, historian

James Reidel, biographer and poet

Douglas Brinkley, historian

Links and Resources:

Rudolph Umland and the Federal Writers' Project

The Nebraska Federal Writers' Project - Lincoln City Libraries

Mari Sandoz and the Writers' Project

Weldon Kees reads his poem, "1926"

WPA Guide to Nebraska (free PDF)

Prairie Schooner

Reading List:

Vanished Act: The Life and Art of Weldon Kees, by James Reidel

Nebraska During the New Deal, by Marilyn Irvin Holt

Soul of a People by David A. Taylor

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan

The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees, edited by Donald Justice

Crazy Horse, by Mari Sandoz

Credits

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Assistant Editor: Amy Young

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Jared Buggage, Sam Hanks, JoJo Drake Kalin, Antonio Macias, James Mirabello, Mariko Miyazaki, Kate Rafter and Sarah Smack

Featuring music and archival from: 

Aaron Copland

Alexandria Symphony Orchestra

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Mike Sayre

Ceiri Torjussen

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

New York Public Radio Archives Collection

Nebraska Public Media

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Franklin Delano Library and Museum is an amazing place which just celebrated its 75th anniversary.  President Roosevelt had the idea to build the library on his family property in Hyde Park, New York, using private funds.  And then he donated the library and its historical collections, including all of his personal and official papers, to the US Government.  This started the precedent of Presidential Libraries that we continue today.  

Last month, we sat down with the FDR Library and its director Bill Harris and had a great discussion about the Federal Writers' Project, its impact then, and why it still matters today.  Please join our host Chris Haley, writer-producers David Taylor and James Mirabello and historian Sara Rutkowski for a few highlights from that conversation.

You can see the full discussion on the FDR Library’s YouTube channel here.  

Links and Resources:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library and Museum

"Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers' Project" with Sara Rutkowski

Credits:

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editor: Amy Young

Featuring music from Pond5

Featuring: Chris Haley, Bill Harris, David A. Taylor, Sara Rutkowski and James Mirabello

Produced with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Florida Humanities, Virginia Humanities, Wisconsin Humanities, California Humanities and Humanities Nebraska. 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

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Every episode, host Lizzie Peabody sneaks listeners through Smithsonian's side door to search for stories that can't be found anywhere else.

We're excited to share one of those stories. “King’s Speech” is about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the evolution of his iconic I Have a Dream speech.  It’s fascinating to chart the history of his speech and to hear how Dr. King was influenced by poet Langston Hughes, who worked with the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s and co-wrote a play with one of the writers featured in the People's Recorder, Zora Neale Hurston.

Guests:

Kevin Young, Director of Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

W. Jason Miller, Author of Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric

Enjoy the episode!  To hear more, search for Sidedoor wherever you get your podcasts or go to www.si.edu/sidedoor.

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Episode Summary:

This episode features two more stories of outsiders remaking themselves and California history. 

Eluard McDaniel left the Jim Crow South for California as a boy, and remade himself as an activist and writer on the West Coast. His account of his life brought him national attention when it appeared in American Stuff, a book of creative works by members of the Federal Writers’ Project and Federal Art Project selected by Henry Alsberg.

Miné Okubo was a rising artist with the Federal Art Project who drew on her art and her life story to depict a hidden history of injustice during World War II in her book Citizen 13660. Even decades later, a culture of silence surrounded that experience – until her book won an American Book Award and became testimony that sought redress for Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war.

Speakers:

David Bradley, novelist

Seiko Buckingham, niece of Miné Okubo

Jeanie Tanaka, niece of Miné Okubo

David Kipen, journalist and author

Links and Resources:

"American Stuff" anthology by members of the Federal Writers' Project and prints by the Federal Art Project

'Citizen 13660" short film by the National Park Service

"Sincerely, Miné Okubo" short film from the Japanese American National Museum

"Pictures of Belonging" 2024 art exhibition

Eluard McDaniel entry, Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives

Reading List:

Citizen 13660, by Miné Okubo

Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road, by Greg Robinson

The Dream and the Deal, by Jerre Mangione

“Bumming in California” by Eluard McDaniel, in On the Fly: Hobo Literature and Songs, 1879 – 1941, PM Press

The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel, by David Bradley

Dear California, by David Kipen

Black California, edited by Aparajita Nanda

California in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the Golden State with introduction, by David Kipen

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Assistant Editor: Amy Young

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Jared Buggage, Mariko Miyazaki, Kate Rafter and Amy Young

Featuring music and archival from: 

Pete Seeger

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Manny Harriman Video Oral History Collection, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, NYU Special Collections.

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

California Humanities.

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California has always attracted outsiders, from the Gold Rush in the 1800s to young actors and filmmakers drawn to Hollywood. California was especially a place of migration during the Great Depression, when tens of thousands came searching for jobs and new beginnings. 

This is the first of two episodes about writers displaced by the Depression who took different paths to remaking themselves in California and documenting America. Future composer Harry Partch was more comfortable as a migrant than in straight mainstream society. Tillie Olsen found her way from Nebraska to become a reporter-activist who faced long odds to becoming a writer as a woman in the 1930s. 

With their work on the Federal Writers’ Project, Olsen and Partch helped create an expansive picture of California, people in migration, and the day-to-day reality that included deep labor unrest. Tensions that roiled across America boiled over in the California Writers’ Project, signaling the struggles to come in the national office. 

Speakers:

David Bradley, novelist

Mary Gordon, novelist

Andrew Granade, musicologist and biographer

David Kipen, journalist and author

Links and Resources:

California and the Dust Bowl - Oakland Museum of California

California Gold: Story Map of 1930s California Folk Music

"What Kind of Worker is a Writer" (about Tillie Olsen) by Maggie Doherty in The New Yorker

"I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen

"U.S. Highball," composed by Harry Partch, performed in 2018

Harry Partch: The Outsider

Reading List:

California in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the Golden State with introduction, by David Kipen

Harry Partch, Hobo Composer, by S. Andrew Granade

Tell Me a Riddle, by Tillie Olsen

The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel, by David Bradley

Payback: A Novel, by Mary Gordon

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Assistant Editor: Amy Young 

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Karen Simon, Tim Lorenz, Steve Klingbiel, Sarah Supsiri, and Ethan Oser

Featuring music and archival from: 

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

BBC

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

California Humanities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 1930s when America was deep in the disaster of the Dust Bowl, Wisconsin professor and wildlife expert Aldo Leopold brought a new way of thinking about how people engage with nature. Studying the dynamics of soil erosion and people’s behavior, he made suggestions for change that led him to the White House to meet the President.

Leopold faced a personal crisis too, while writing his way toward a new understanding of our relationship with nature. When the Federal Writers’ Project recruited him to write for the WPA Guide to Wisconsin, the picture he described in the guide’s section on Conservation marked a path toward the modern environmental movement. In this episode, Leopold’s biographer, Curt Meine, connects the dots to Earth Day and a new generation of environmentalists.

Speakers:

Curt Meine, biographer

Douglas Brinkley, historian

Tim Hundt, journalist

Links and Resources:

Aldo Leopold film on PBS

Gaylord Nelson announces the first Earth Day

Human Powered Podcast, episode on The Driftless region

Reading List:

WPA Guide to Wisconsin

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work by Curt Meine

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited by Ada Limón 

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Tim Lorenz and Susanne Desoutter

Featuring music and archival from: 

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

Wisconsin Humanities

Also featuring the song “Wisconsin” performed by Madilyn Bailey.  Written by Madilyn Bailey, Martijn Tienus, John Sinclair and Clifford Golio, and produced by Clifford Golio and Joseph Barba.  Find the full song here and visit her Spotify artist page to hear more.    

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gerald Hill is an Oneida lawyer and the former President of the Indigenous Language Institute. This bonus features a conversation with Hill, who provides the voice for Oneida community leader Oscar Archiquette in our episode about the WPA Oneida Language Project in Wisconsin. For that episode, Hill read a handful of Archiquette’s quotes about his life and work on the WPA. After each reading, he gave valuable historical and cultural context for those quotes, which we are excited to share with you. 

Before you listen to this conversation, we strongly recommend you listen to Episode 6: Native Historians Do Stand-Up, which is about Oscar Archiquette and the WPA Oneida Language Project, and how that work still inspires tribal historians today. 

Links and Resources:

Oneida Nation Cultural Heritage Webpage

Oneida Books Rediscovered

Further Reading:

Oneida Lives edited by Herbert Lewis

Soul of a People by David A. Taylor

Credits:

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editors: Amelia Jarecke and James Mirabello

Featuring music from The Oneida Singers and Pond5

Produced with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Wisconsin Humanities. 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1977, Charlie Hill became the first Native comedian to perform on a national TV broadcast – a groundbreaking performance in television and cultural history.  

“It was a huge moment,” said Seminole filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, “When Charlie Hill went on national television and simply spoke like a human being... He changed the public perception about what a Native person is.” 

Charlie Hill’s comedic approach to the Oneida story is part of a long lineage of storytellers and historians defying stereotypes that includes Oscar Archiquette, a young Oneida working construction when the Federal Writers’ Project came to Wisconsin in the 1935. Archiquette joined a local unit of the Writers’ Project that sought to preserve the Oneida language and histories by interviewing elders and transcribing their stories. That work – and its blend of activism, culture and disarming humor – inspired later Oneida historians such as Loretta Metoxen and Gordon McLester and continues to inspire tribal historians today.  

Speakers:

Michelle Danforth Anderson, Oneida documentarian

Gordon McLester, Oneida historian

Loretta Metoxen, Oneida historian

Betty McLester, Oneida elder

Gerald Hill, Oneida elder

Jennifer Webster, Council Member

Links and Resources:

Oneida Nation Cultural Heritage Webpage

Charlie Hill's performance on the Richard Pryor Show, 1977

Oneida Notebooks Rediscovered, 1999

Human-Powered Podcast, Episode 5, "The Power of Indigenous Knowledge

Further Reading:

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans in Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

Oneida Lives edited by Herbert Lewis

Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Uncover Depression America by David A. Taylor

“Indian Humor” chapter in Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria Jr.

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor and James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Scott Nelson Elm, Gerald Hill, Ethan Oser and Marjorie Stevens

Special Thanks: Christopher Powless

Featuring music and archival material from: 

The Oneida Singers

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

NPR

MSNBC

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Federal Writers’ Project interviews, collected in the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, have inspired generations with their personal experiences of American life. The Writers’ Project pioneered oral history and the idea of documenting history from the grassroots up.

In this bonus, following the episode on the Writers’ Project interviews in Florida, we hear excerpts from oral histories recorded with the nonprofit group StoryCorps. In two conversations, four Floridians talked about their experiences early in the Covid pandemic when frontline workers, often people of color, were particularly vulnerable.

StoryCorps, launched in 2003 with original WPA writer Studs Terkel on hand, is one of many oral history initiatives directly inspired by the Writers’ Project interviews.

Links and Resources:

American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Storycorps

Tips for a great oral history interview

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editors: James Mirabello, Amy Young and Ethan Oser

Writer: David A. Taylor

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

Interview excerpts shared with permission from StoryCorps. The StoryCorps interviews were recorded and produced by StoryCorps and originally aired on April 17th and May 15th, 2020 on NPR’s Morning Edition. Those broadcasts were made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Florida Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While working on the WPA Florida guidebook, the Federal Writers’ Project team – including Zora Neale Hurston and Stetson Kennedy – documented a wide range of life from prison camps to soup kitchens to hair salons, in recordings that reveal a living culture and enduring traditions.  

Hurston and Kennedy traveled the state, recording people’s stories and songs. That included a visit to a remote turpentine work site where they encountered a forced labor camp and the brutal conditions in a form of slavery that continued well into the 20th century. 

Project interviewers in Florida also searched for survivors of pre-Civil War slavery and gathered hundreds of interviews. Nationally, thousands of “ex-slave interviews” are treasures for understanding that lived experience. But the Project’s written interviews should be read with caution. Historians remind us that those manuscripts are complicated and often reinforced racial bias and stereotypes.  Historian Tameka Hobbs helps put this work in context and brings it alive.

Speakers:

Peggy Bulger, folklorist

Maryemma Graham, literary historian

Tameka Hobbs, historian

Stetson Kennedy, author and Project alum

James McBride, novelist

Ernest Toole, folk musician

Flo Turcotte, historian

Links and Resources:

"Turpentine Camp, Cross City" typescript essay by Zora Neale Hurston

"Viola Muse Digital Edition" Digital Archive of Muse's Writers' Project work

Zora Neale Hurston Collection at the University of Florida

Library of Congress webcast: 75th Anniversary of "These Are Our Lives" a collection of Writers' Project life histories

Drop on Down in Florida

Ernest Toole Spotify Artist Page

Further Reading:

WPA Guide to Florida

Go Gator and Muddy the Water by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Pamela Bordelon

Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston

To Walk About in Freedom, by Carole Emberton

These Are Our Lives, life histories from the Federal Writers’ Project

Conchtown USA: Bahamian Fisherfolk in Riviera Beach, Florida, by Charles C. Foster

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor and James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Jared Buggage

Featuring music and archival material from: 

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Florida Humanities

Stetson Kennedy Foundation

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As host Chris Haley said, Zora Neale Hurston was a homegrown Florida treasure, known for her wit, charm, and a true gift for collecting folklore.  As part of her work with the Writers’ Project, she made over a dozen recordings with audio equipment borrowed from the Library of Congress.

She knew about the equipment from earlier field recordings she had made with folklorist Alan Lomax.  So, when she had the chance to use it for the Writers’ Project, Hurston “checked it out” from the Library. 

We do use short excerpts in our last episode, but the full recordings really are a lot of fun to listen to.  After you listen to these, we encourage you to go to the Library of Congress to listen to more!  

Links and Resources:

Preserving Songs and Culture: Zora Neale Hurston and the Federal Writers' Project

Original Recording: Georgia Skin

Original Recording: Dat Old Black Gal

Original Recording: Let the Deal Go Down

Original Recording: Mule on the Mount

Original Recording: Uncle Bud

Credits:

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editors: James Mirabello and Ethan Oser

Writer: James Mirabello

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

Library of Congress 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Florida Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was already a nationally known novelist, anthropologist and member of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. Yet she saw her publishing income dry up during the Great Depression even with the publication of her best-known novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. When she took a job with the Writers’ Project in Florida, her first assignment was to write for the WPA Guide to Florida. In the hands of truth-seekers like Hurston and a young white co-worker, Stetson Kennedy, the Florida WPA guidebook would reflect a wide range of Florida life, “warts and all,” including a report of violent voter suppression in the 1920s—until editors started to push back. This episode follows that conflict. 

Hurston also moved the Writers’ Project to record the songs and folktales of Florida culture. We hear from historians and bestselling novelist James McBride about how that work still resonates today.

Speakers:

Douglas Brinkley, historian 

Peggy Bulger, folklorist

Tameka Hobbs, historian

Stetson Kennedy, author and Project alum 

James McBride, author

Flo Turcotte, historian

Links and Resources:

Florida Memory Zora Neale Hurston Page

Zora Neale Hurston Collection at University of Florida

Florida Memory WPA Page

Florida Memory Stetson Kennedy Interview

NPR: Writer Finds Zora Neale Hurston’s Florida

Further Reading:

WPA Guide to Florida 

Go Gator and Muddy the Water by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Pamela Bordelon

Palmetto Country by Stetson Kennedy

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

Stetson Kennedy: Applied Folklore and Cultural Advocacy by Peggy Bulger

Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Facial Violence in Florida by Tameka Hobbs

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor and James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Assistant Editor: Amy A. Young

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Amesha McElveen and Skip Coblyn

Featuring music and archival material from: 

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Florida Humanities

Stetson Kennedy Foundation

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As detailed in episodes 2 and 3, Roscoe Lewis’ unit on the Federal Writers’ Project conducted interviews with the survivors of slavery in Virginia. One member of the unit, a former teacher named Susie RC Byrd, interviewed dozens of formerly enslaved persons in Petersburg in a series of weekly meetings. Lewis and Byrd also arranged to borrow equipment from the University of Virginia to record songs performed at one of these meetings.  

We are sharing two of those recordings with you today, “Stomp Down” and “Gonna Shout.”  Please note, the audio quality is poor, but what is amazing is that these are the actual voices of those who survived slavery.  It’s easy to think that slavery was something that happened a long time ago, but hearing these voices, you’ll feel that slavery was not in the distant past.  

The soloist in “Stomp Down” is Sister Charlotte Taylor and the soloist in “Gonna Shout” is Reverend Ishrael Massie.  

Links and Resources: 

"Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories" at the Library of Congress

"Ex-Slave Narratives" at the Library of Virginia

American Folklife Center

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editors: James Mirabello and Ethan Oser

Writer: James Mirabello

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Florida Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode looks at communities that have suffered neglect from official history, and the example of African American landmarks and burial grounds in Virginia. Some families and communities have pushed to reclaim their place and spaces, often using tools employed earlier by the Federal Writers’ Project. Project workers often consulted landmarks and cemetery headstones to present a fuller picture of local history.  

In southern states, the Writers’ Project encountered the Lost Cause, the effort emerging after the Civil War that aimed to rewrite the war’s meaning and origins in slavery. The myth shaped the environment for white writers of the WPA Guide to Virginia, and it continues to hold influence even today. Yet the field research underlying the WPA guide – the details the federal writers uncovered in records, interviews and landmarks – as well as another Project publication, The Negro in Virginia, provide a way to untangle the Lost Cause myth. We probe that history with poet Kiki Petrosino as she researches her family’s Virginia history, and with historians at the Library of Virginia, the Alexandria Black History Museum and the University of Richmond.

Speakers:

Audrey Davis, historian

Julian Hayter, historian

Gregg Kimball, historian

Kiki Petrosino, poet

Alton Darden, Helping Hand Cemetery trustee

Maurice Darden, Helping Hand Cemetery trustee

Dolores Peterson, Helping Hand Cemetery trustee

Links and Resources:

Helping Hand Cemetery Club

"Unmarked" documentary

Photo Essay about East End Cemetery by Kiki Petrosino and Brian Palmer

Encyclopedia Virginia entry on the Lost Cause

Alexandria Black History Museum

Library of Virginia

Further Reading:

The Negro in Virginia by the Federal Writers’ Project 

White Blood by Kiki Petrosino

Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers’ Project, edited by Sara Rutkowski

How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith

The Dream is Lost by Julian Hayter

American City, Southern Place by Gregg Kimball 

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editors: Ethan Oser and Julie Chalhoub

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Skip Coblyn, James Mirabello, Jared Buggage, Jerry Ray and Danielle Nance 

Featuring music and archival material from: 

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

NPR

WUSA9

ABC News

News2Share

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Get to know The People's Recorder host Chris Haley a little bit better. Chris is Director of Research, Education and Outreach, and the Study of the Legacy of Slavery at the Maryland State Archives. He's also an actor, a poet, and a filmmaker.  

In this special bonus episode, he speaks with Spark Media's Bright Djampa about growing up as his Uncle Alex's iconic book "Roots" became a phenomenon, his own love of history and genealogy, and the importance of the work done by those on the Federal Writers' Project. 

Links and Resources: 

Unmarked film. co-directed by Chris Haley

Chris Haley's website

Legacy of Slavery in Maryland, Maryland State Archives

National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom

Remembering Roots, History.com

Credits:

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Interviewer: Bright Djampa

Editors: Amelia Jarecke and Ethan Oser

Featuring music from Pond5

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Florida Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

In the depths of the Great Depression, the U.S government hired out-of-work writers and laid-off reporters and sent them out to record the stories of all kinds of Americans. Dubbed the Federal Writers’ Project, historians have called the program a giant "listening project." 

In this introductory episode, host Chris Haley sets the stage, laying out 1930s America, the New Deal, and the cultural forces that both supported and opposed the Writers’ Project.  We meet the agency’s national director Henry Alsberg and a handful of its writers across the country, including Zora Neale Hurston, Studs Terkel and Ralph Ellison. We also dig into the key questions that are still debated in public forums today: What history gets told?  And who gets to tell it?  

Speakers:

Scott Borchert, author

David Bradley, novelist

Douglas Brinkley, historian

Tameka Hobbs, historian

David Kipen, author

Dena Epstein, daughter of federal writer Hilda Polacheck

Studs Terkel, oral historian

Links and Resources:

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project

Born to Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project

Author Scott Borchert on the Federal Writers’ Project and the WPA guidebooks 

Article on Library of Congress symposium on The Millions 

Further Reading:

Soul of a People by David A. Taylor

Republic of Detours by Scott Borchert 

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

California in the 1930s by David Kipen

Hard Times by Studs Terkel

First-Person America by Ann Banks 

Henry Alsberg by Susan DeMasi

Long Past Slavery by Catherine A. Stewart

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editors: Steve Klingbiel and Ethan Oser

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Karen Simon, Robert Mirabello, Gary Hogan and Vince Brown

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

Library of Congress 

National Archives 

New York Public Library

Swing Time (RKO, 1936)

Smithsonian Folkways

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Florida Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Federal Writers’ Project set out to create a series of books that held up a mirror to America, and chronicled communities that had long been ignored. Howard University professor Sterling Brown led the agency’s effort to document African American history in a series of books. In Virginia, chemistry professor Roscoe Lewis led a small team to produce the first book in that national series, titled The Negro in Virginia.  Lewis recruited a dozen Black writers and researchers across the state for a pioneering effort that recorded interviews with nearly 300 formerly enslaved people. They navigated a backlash from state editors and local officials. Against all odds, their book on Black life became a national Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and a milestone on the path to the Civil Rights movement.

Speakers:

Audrey Davis, historian

Julian Hayter, historian

Gregg Kimball, historian

Kiki Petrosino, poet

Links and Resources:

Photo essay about East End Cemetery by Kiki Petrosino and Brian Palmer in VQR

“Unmarked” documentary

Virginia Humanities Q&A with David A. Taylor

Washington Post article on Roscoe Lewis and The Negro in Virginia

Alexandria Black History Museum

Reading List:

The Negro in Virginia (Library of Virginia)

White Blood by Kiki Petrosino

Long Past Slavery: Representing Race in the Federal Writers’ Project by Catherine A. Stewart

To Walk About in Freedom by Carole Emberton

The Dream is Lost by Julian Hayter 

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editors: Ethan Oser and Julie Chalhoub

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Skip Coblyn, Sherry Carter-Brownell, Robert Mirabello, James Mirabello and Danielle Nance

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

Library of Congress 

National Archives 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Virginia Humanities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The People’s Recorder is a podcast about the 1930s Federal Writers’ Project: what it achieved, where it fell short, and what it means for Americans today.

Each episode features stories of individual writers, new places, and the project's impact on people's lives. Along the way we hear from historians, novelists, and others who shed light on that experience and unexpected connections to American society today.

The People’s Recorder is produced by Spark Media with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Florida Humanities, Virginia Humanities, Wisconsin Humanities, California Humanities and Humanities Nebraska.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.