Works Progress Administration

The Federal Writers' Project was a New Deal program created in 1935, during the Great Depression, to put unemployed writers back to work. Its signature achievement was the American Guide Series, a sweeping set of travel guides documenting the history, culture, and character of the United States, region by region and city by city. Writers fanned out across the country to chronicle individual states, towns, and neighborhoods, capturing local life with a depth no commercial publisher had attempted. The New Orleans City Guide, first published in 1938, was among the series' standouts, a richly detailed portrait of the city's streets, customs, and culture.