Guest author Sue Rubenstein DeMasi is an academic librarian, professor emeritus at Suffolk County Community College in New York and dramatic writer and journalist. Professor DeMasi is the author of several publications on Henry Alsberg, Director of the New Deal era’s Federal Writers’ Project from 1935-39. Her essay for Folklife Today on Henry Alsberg’s early career expands on her talk at the 2023 American Folklife Center symposium marking the publication of the anthology, Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers’ Project (2022). The anthology and symposium offered a range of scholarly perspectives and retrospective analysis of the FWP on its 80th anniversary (see this blog post about the symposium); symposium webcasts are accessible here: https://guides.loc.gov/2023-federal-writers-project-symposium. Professor DeMasi's post touches on Alsberg's pre-FWP activities as a writer, book editor and theatrical producer, all of which were concerned with advancing the struggle for social justice and human rights.
In this guest blog, Dr. John Edgar Tidwell, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Kansas, focuses on the critical importance of Sterling A. Brown's work as Editor on Negro Affairs for the Depression-era Federal Writers' Project, and his efforts in the struggle against racial inequality by "authentic[ating] representations of Blacks in the American Guide Series travel guides." The response to his work by authorities speaks volumes about the repressive political climate that sought to suppress any research and analysis of societal conflict and injustice such as Brown's. Dr. Tidwell presented a version of these remarks at an AFC symposium in June 2023 to mark the publication of the anthology, Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers’ Project (2022), which critically examines the FWP on its 80th anniversary. It is most appropriate to publish this blog today, since it was 45 years ago today, on November 16, 1978, that the Library of Congress celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Archive of Folk Song with a day-long symposium featuring, among others, Alan Lomax, song-collector and archivist for the Archive in its early years; David "Honeyboy" Edwards, master blues singer and later a Grammy recipient; and Sterling A. Brown, author, poet, and guiding figure in the FWP.
