History Commons^™

Regionalist Romance: "America Eats" And The Culinary Myth-Making Of The Federal Writers' Project, Icarus J. Smith

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis expands upon food historian Camille Bégin's assertion that the "America Eats" manuscript of the New Deal's Federal Writers' Project was "in tune with the interwar revival of regionalism" in the United States. Using archival material associated with the project and regionalist literature of the period, this study explores the dichotomies inherent in the broader regionalist movement of the Depression Era -- particularly using the project's treatment of the American West. Using foodways as the topic and regionalism as the intellectual framework, the FWP employees sought to document what they believed was the authentic culinary character of the nation …

The Federal Writers' Project In Oregon, 1935-1942 : A Case Study, Thomas James Ptacek

Dissertations and Theses

First, this study argues that the Oregon Writers' Project cannot be used as a measurement for the effectiveness of government subsidy of the arts. The people who ran the program never claimed to be supporting art but to be supporting unemployed writers. In fact, the administrators tried to discourage any freedom or flexibility which would have provided a climate for the writer to flourish in the artistic sense. With this recognition in mind, one may not validly use the Writers' Project as a tool for accurate measurement of governmental subsidization of art.

This study also takes major exception to a …