Like its companion organization on Art, the WPA Federal Theatre Project was very successful in its output, but politically it ran aground in 1939 when the House Committee on Un-American Activities pulled its funding.

As with the other WPA projects, the main goal of this project was to provide employment to those out of work during the Depression, primarily those whose jobs were related in some way the the theater – everything from writers to vaudeville performers to stage hands.

Actors Orson Welles and John Houseman were part of this project, which was most active, not surprisingly, in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

The NARA Web Guide for the Theatre project is a bit more robust than those for the Art and Music programs.

That is partly due to the back link to the Poster collection, which showcases many of the theatre programs, and the short bibliography at the end of the online resources.

There are also links in the Web Guide to collections housed outside of the Library of Congress, to educational resources, which will supplement historical knowledge and a short bibliography of further resources, not digitally accessible.

Other Resources

NARA’s Record Group 69 features materials pertaining to the WPA, including a few video clips of movies created. Some of these films were just news items about the project. However, the few I sample were visually not of great quality and there was no sound.

Wikipedia has a lengthy article about the Federal Theatre Project, which features sections on African American Theater, Dance and Drama and Foreign Language productions. There is a list of external links at the bottom of the article, offering more about the history of the Federal Theatre Project and to sites that houses collections pertaining to it.

UCLA has a finding aid for the Federal Theatre Project Scripts and Publications, 1936-1939, which is quite lengthy.

Here are several more historical links:

Federal Theatre Project (Negro Units)

Federal Theatre Project (FTP) (1935)

“Propaganda for Democracy”: The Vexed History of the Federal Theatre Project

JSTOR ($19 to download) offers a three-page article:
A User’s Guide to the Federal Theatre Project

Although this project was most prolific in big cities, there were local groups active in smaller towns. Be sure to check local repositories like historical societies, state archives and even public libraries for information about any activities in your location of interest.

Next in this series is the Federal Writers Project.

The WPA Federal Music Project was very, very successful, although shorter lived than some of the other projects, but it might be the project with the least number of resources available. That is because composers and musicians and conductors were hired to perform thousands of musical programs and to teach music classes around the country, but much of their work wasn’t recorded.

As with the Federal Art Project, the first repository to check for information is the Library of Congress Web Guide for the Federal Music Project.

The first link guides us back to the Federal Art Project and its poster collection, not to sound recordings.

Special Collections links include items not available online and require a visit to the Library of Congress. NARA houses the administrative records of the project. The Recorded Sound Reference Center in the Library of Congress does have a collection of WPA era music, but appointments must be made to visit in person to hear the music.

Syracuse University houses the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Phonodisc Collection. Accessing the collection requires an appointment.

Wikipedia’s page on the Federal Music Project offers more details about the history of the project.

The objective of this program was to employ those in the music field to encourage an appreciation of various types of music among Americans. Musical pieces were written, performed by individuals, groups and full orchestras.

When WPA musicians weren’t performing, they were teaching adults and children how to sing and play musical instruments. Training was also provided to future music teachers.

The country was divided into multi-state regions, but most musicians worked in one state, not as part of a traveling group.

By the time the project ended, musicians had performed in more than a quarter million free or low-cost programs presented to the public.

There are many repositories that house information about the Federal Music Project. Some of them have audio recordings, but researchers will have to do some digging to find them.

Suggestions

For this project, searches will be more successful if googling “Federal Music Project” plus a state name.

Other repositories at the individual state level to search include:

1. Universities and colleges
2. State archives
3. State libraries
4. State historical societies
5. Local libraries

While it may not be easy to listen to much of the music from home, if you have family members who were musical and there are stories about them participating in programs or teaching music classes during the Depression, visit the sites I’ve mentioned and then search local repositories for additional information about the program in the town where your family lived.

Be sure to look for online information about the Federal Music Project in your location of interest. Here are a few links to college students’ theses on the WPA that I found:

Eager and Hungry for Music: The WPA Music Project in New Orleans, 1935-1943

Texas State Historical Association: Federal Music Project

Foundations of Folk: The Federal Music Project, The Joint Committee on Folk Arts, and the Archive of American Folk-Song

Made in America: The Federal Music Project in the Midwest

And one book:
Sounds of the New Deal, The Federal Music Project in the West, by Peter Gough, 2015, available on Amazon

Coming up next is a look at the WPA Federal Theatre Project.

The Great Depression created the impetus for President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to put Americans back to work. One of the many programs created in 1933, under the New Deal, was the Works Progress Administration, or WPA.

Why are the WPA accomplishments important to genealogists today?

The Works Progress Administration programs touched the lives of millions of Americans during the Great Depression. It was designed to not only employ those out of work, but Federal Project Number One, which included the five projects about which I am writing, had as a goal to make culture and the arts accessible to everyone during those difficult years.

It is likely that you have parents, grandparents or perhaps even great grandparents who participated in one or more of these projects in some way. You never know exactly what you are going to find, but, as you will see, a huge variety of records were created in less than a decade. It’s well worth taking the time to have a look.

Back in 2015, I wrote about the basics of the Works Progress Administration, but in today’s digital world, that was the dinosaur era. Both federal and state repositories have made some of the books, guides and various record sets available to researchers online. Therefore, it’s time to take a much deeper dive into these fabulous records.

How are these records organized?

WPA records have been divided into five categories:

Federal Art Project
Federal Music Project
Federal Theatre Project
Federal Writers Project
Historical Records Survey

The two programs with the largest paper output are the Writers Project and the Historical Records Survey, but each of the five projects impacted daily American lives.

Where can the records be found?

Part of the reason that these records are underused by genealogists is because they are not found in any one repository.

Several of the five projects, like today’s topic, have easy access, almost one-stop shopping guides, so to speak.

However, the Historical Records Survey is housed in many different places. Some pieces can be found at NARA, at state level archives, on FamilySearch, on HathiTrust and the Internet Archive and even in some local level repositories, such as historical societies. It all depends on who accepted possession of the records when the Works Progress Administration ended as the United States entered World War II and where digital versions of records have been saved.

What kinds of information can be found in the WPA Projects?

A huge variety of American cultural and historical information has been noted and recorded in the various projects. Researchers will find everything from state guides containing local historical tours to slave narratives to American theatrical shows to local church records to photographs detailing American life. There is much information about American life that would have been lost to history had the WPA workers not saved it.

These surveys didn’t have a genealogical goal in mind as they were created. You might be lucky to find a family member in these records – I found an oral interview of a grand uncle of my mother-in-law describing life in early Oklahoma – but it is likely that you will learn something new about the daily life of Americans that will enrich your own family history knowledge.

This will be a five-part series, one post about each project, and today we will look at the Federal Art Project.

The first stop for anyone interested in the WPA projects should be the Library of Congress Web Guide.

The objective of the Federal Art Project was “to provide work relief for artists in various media–painters, sculptors, muralists and graphic artists, with various levels of experience.”

Online materials include over 900 poster images of the 2000 known to have been created in the WPA era, plus over 200  fine art prints created by local artists.

Those items can be accessed on the Library of Congress website using the links found in the guides.

The Web Guide also has a short list of external collections, including those held by NARA, the Smithsonian and the National Gallery of Art. The Smithsonian also has a collection of oral interviews with both artists and photographers of the Depression Era.

Where else can information be found about the
Federal Art Project?

Wikipedia has an extensive list of Federal Art Project artists and background history about the project itself. Both have extensive links.

The Art Story has an excellent overview and the accomplishments of the program.

Being visually oriented, this is a fun project just to browse. Poster art included Public School Art from Sioux City, Macbeth presented by the WPA Federal Theatre Negro Unit and See America. Welcome to Montana. There is a bit of everything representing the arts in America.

Search Tip –  Be sure to do a search of each of the five WPA Federal Projects with the name of a state included in the search terms to locate local resources pertaining to each project.

Finally, be aware that not everything has been digitized, nor is it all accessible online.

Tomorrow’s post will look at the Federal Music Project.