Creator: Work Projects Administration (RG 60).

Collection Summary: Correspondence, largely to and from Eri Douglass, the state director of the Federal Writer’s Project. Most of the correspondence concerns the compilation and completion of Mississippi: A Guide to the Magnolia State, and similar guidebooks for the Gulf Coast as well as the publications Your Vacation in Mississippi and Greenwood and Historic Homes. There is also correspondence containing requests for copies of various Mississippi Writers’ Project publications and correspondence concerning workers’ requests for employment and worker biographies. 

Access Restrictions: None.

Date(s): 1936-1943, undated. 

Volume: 1.00 Cubic Feet.

Finding Aid Created By: Colby Cox in August 2024.

Related Materials: TBD

Record Group History: The Works Projects Administration (WPA) was a federal program established on May 6th, 1935, in order to increase employment during the Great Depression. While the WPA was a federal program, it was implemented and managed on the state level with each state having their own director and office to guide the operation of the WPA for each state. The WPA was primarily focused on employing individuals for the purpose of creating public works and infrastructure, but a small portion of its funding was devoted to cultural and artistic endeavors which the files in this collection are primarily concerned with. Two of the major cultural projects the WPA undertook were the Federal Writers’ Project and the Historical Records Survey. The Federal Writers Project employed writers to create guides, histories, and chronicles for each state and the Historical Records Survey sought to catalogue the historical records of each state.

Collection Inventory:
Box Content 

Box Number

Publication correspondence: 1936-1941.

10470

Publication correspondence: 1938-1943.

32049

Worker correspondence: 1935-1937, undated.

32049