Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937-1942

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Florida writings from the Federal Writers' Project (FWP)

This section includes writings about Florida history and folklife published by Federal Writers' Project workers both inside and outside the scope of their federal employment.

American Stuff: An Anthology of Prose and Verse by Members of the Federal Writers' Project. 1937. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1976.

Bolton, Ruth. "Irene Jackson." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

---. "Rev. Harden W. Stucky." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

Botkin, B. A., ed. Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery. 1945. Reprint, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989.

---. A Treasury of American Folklore. 1944. Reprint, New York: Wings Books, 1993.

---. A Treasury of Southern Folklore. 1949. Reprint, New York: American Legacy Press, 1984.

Clark, Bernal Emerson, and Carita Doggett Corse. Dr. Andrew Turnbull and the New Smyrna Colony of Florida. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1919.

Corse, Carita Doggett. Florida: Empire of the Sun. Tallahassee: State Hotel Commission, 1930.

Darsey, Barbara B. "Ella Lassiter (Life and Songs in Slavery)." Folklore Project, Florida Writers' Project, 1940. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

Darsey, Barbara Berry, and Stetson Kennedy. "Florida Squatters." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1938. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State. American Guide Series. Compiled and written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Florida. 1939. Reissued, with a new introduction by John I. McCollum, as The WPA Guide to Florida: The Federal Writers' Project Guide to 1930s Florida. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.

Foster, Charles C. Conchtown USA: Bahamian Fisherfolk in Riviera Beach, Florida. Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1991.

Hurston, Zora Neale. The Complete Stories. Introduction by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

---. "Dance Songs and Tales from the Bahamas." Journal of American Folklore 43 (July-September 1930): 294-312.

---. Dust Tracks on a Road. 1942. Reprint, with restored text, foreword by Maya Angelou, and afterword by Henry Louis Gates Jr., New York: HarperPerennial, 1996.

---. Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings. New York: Library of America, 1995.

---. Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers' Project. Edited and with a biographical essay by Pamela Bordelon. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

---. I Love Myself When I Am Laughing . . . & Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader. Edited by Alice Walker, introduction by Mary Helen Washington. Old Westbury, N.Y.: The Feminist Press, 1979.

---. Mules and Men. Reprint, with a foreword by Arnold Rampersad and afterword by Henry Louis Gates Jr., New York: HarperPerennial, 1990.

---. The Sanctified Church. Berkeley, Ca.: Turtle Island, 1981.

---. Seraph on the Suwanee: A Novel. 1948. Reprint, with a foreword by Hazel V. Carby, and afterword by Henry Louis Gates Jr., New York: HarperPerennial, 1991.

---. Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel. 1937. Reprint, with a foreword by Mary Helen Washington, New York: HarperPerennial, 1990.

Huss, Veronica D. "A Riviera 'Conch'." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1936. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

Huss, Veronica, and Evelyn Werner. "The Conchs of Riviera, Florida." Southern Folklore Quarterly 4 (September 1940): 141-51.

Kennedy, Stetson. "Cantantes Callejeros y La Cucaracha." Southern Folklore Quarterly 6 (September 1942): 140-50.

---. "Enrique and Amanda." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

---. "Mrs. Amelia Devoe." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

---. "Mister Homer." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

---. "Nanigo in Florida." Southern Folklore Quarterly 4 (September 1940): 153-6.

---. Palmetto County. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942. Reprint, with a new afterword by the author, Tallahassee: Florida A&M University Press, 1989.

---. "La Paloma in Florida." Southern Folklore Quarterly 7 (September 1943): 163-4.

---. "Pedro and Estrella." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

McDonough, Gary W., ed. The Florida Negro: A Federal Writers' Project Legacy. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.

Morris, Alton C. Folksongs of Florida. 1950. Reprint, Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990.

Shepherd, Rose. "Mrs. Isabel Barnwell." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

---. "Nueva Esperanza Plantation." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

---. "Slaves of Nueva Esperanza." Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1939. In American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1998), accessed June 30, 2000.

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The FWP and the WPA

The following publications relate particularly to the cultural programs ("Federal One") of the WPA--their creation, their implementation, their achievements, and their legacy. Some of these publications place special emphasis on the WPA's work in Florida and the South.

Banks, Ann, and Robert Carter. Survey of Federal Writers' Project Manuscript Holdings in State Depositories. Foreword by Alan Brinkley. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1985.

Bindas, Kenneth J. All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA's Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935-1939. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995.

Bordelon, Pamela G. "Mirror to America: the Federal Writers' Project's Florida Reflection." Ph.D. diss., Louisiana State University, 1991.

Botkin, B. A. "WPA and Folklore Research: 'Bread and Song.'" Southern Folklore Quarterly 3 (March 1939): 7-14.

---. "We Called It Living Lore." New York Folklore Quarterly 14 (Autumn 1958): 189-201.

Brewer, Jeutonne P. The Federal Writers' Project: A Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994.

Cole, John Y. Amassing American "Stuff": The Library of Congress and the Federal Arts Projects of the 1930s. Reprinted from Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (Fall 1983): 356-89. In The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1999), accessed June 30, 2000.

Couch, William T., ed. These Are Our Lives. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939.

Davidson, Katharine H., ed. Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Federal Writers' Project, Work Projects Administration, 1935-44 (Record Group 69). Preliminary inventories of the National Archives of the United States, No. 57. National Archives Publication No. 54-2. Washington, D.C.: National Archives, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1953.

Findlay, James A., and Margaret Bing. "Touring Florida Through the Federal Writers' Project (external link)." Reprinted from The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts 23 (1998): 288-305. In The WPA: An Exhibition of Works Progress Administration (WPA) Literature and Art from the Collections of the Bienes Center for the Literary Arts (external link) (Fort Lauderdale, Florida: Broward County Library, Bienes Center for the Literary Arts, 1998), accessed July 28, 2003.

Henderson, Ann, and Stetson Kennedy. "The WPA Guide to Florida: A Conversation Between Ann Henderson and Stetson Kennedy." In Florida Forum 9 (Fall 1986): 10-13.

Kennedy, Stetson. "Way Down Upon . . . Gathering Tales of Folklife in Suwannee Country." FHC Forum 17 (Spring/Summer 1993): 22-27.

---. "The W.P.A. Florida Writers Project: A Personal View." FEH Forum 12 (Spring 1989): 1-4.

Leuchtenburg, William. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.

McDonald, William F. Federal Relief Administration and the Arts: The Origins and Administrative History of the Arts Projects of the Works Progress Administration. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969.

McElvaine, Robert S. "New Deal Cultural Programs." In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, 649-50. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Mangione, Jerre. The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers' Project, 1935-1943. 1972. Reprint, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1996.

Penkower, Monty Noam. The Federal Writers' Project: A Study in Government Patronage of the Arts. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977.

Selvaggio, Marc S. The American Guide Series: Works by the Federal Writers' Project. 1990. Reprint, Berkeley, Ca.: Schoyer's Antiquarian Books, 1998.

Swados, Harvey, ed. The American Writer and the Great Depression. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966.

Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. 1970. Reprint, New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Terrill, Tom, and Jerrold Hirsh. Such as Us: Southern Voices of the Thirties. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978.

Watkins, T. H. The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999.

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Florida Writers

The following publications contain biographical and/or bibliographical information about writers whose work and whose voices appear in this online presentation.

Blackman, Lucy Worthington. The Women of Florida.. 2 vols. Jacksonville: The Southern Historical Publishing Associates, 1940. Vol. 2, p. 27 includes biographical information for Carita Doggett Corse.

Blake, Emma. "Zora Neale Hurston: Anthropologist and Folklorist." Negro History Bulletin 29 (April 1966): 149-50.

Bulger, Peggy A. "Stetson Kennedy: Applied Folklore and Cultural Advocacy." Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1992.

---. "Stetson Kennedy: Folklore and the Struggle for Human Rights." The Folklore Historian 8 (1991): 56-66.

Crawley, Laura K., and Joseph C. Hickerson. Zora Neale Hurston: Recordings, Manuscripts, and Ephemera in the Archive of Folk Culture and Other Divisions of the Library of Congress. LCAFAFA No. 11. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1992. ASCII version available.

Dance, Daryl C. "Zora Neale Hurston." In American Women Writers: Biographical Essays, edited by Maurice Duke, Jackson R. Bryer, and M. Thomas Inge, 321-51. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "A Negro Way of Saying." The New York Times Book Review, April 21, 1985, 1, 43, 45. Reprinted as afterword in HarperPerennial editions of Zora Neale Hurston works.

Glassman, Steve, and Kathryn Lee Seidel, eds. Zora in Florida. Orlando: University of Central Florida Press, 1991.

Gold, Pleasant Daniel. History of Duval County, Florida. St. Augustine, Fla.: The Record Company, 1928. Includes biographical information for Carita Doggett Corse, p. 298.

Hemenway, Robert E. Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography. Foreword by Alice Walker. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977.

Hurst, Fannie. "Zora Hurston: A Personality Sketch." Yale University Library Gazette 35 (1961): 17-21.

Lomax, Alan. "Zora Neale Hurston--A Life of Negro Folklore." Sing Out! 10 (Oct.-Nov. 1960): 12-13.

Newson, Adele S. Zora Neale Hurston: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987.

Terkel, Studs. "Stetson Kennedy, 77." In Coming of Age, 391-400. New York: New Press, 1995.

Walker, Alice. "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston." Ms., March 1975, 74-79, 85-89.

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Florida and Florida Folklife

The following publications are recommended for further reading on the culture, environment, ethnology, and history of Florida.

Bailey, Guy. "Conchs." In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, 786. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Boggs, Ralph Steele. "Spanish Folklore from Tampa, Florida." Southern Folklore Quarterly 1 (September 1937): 1-12.

Bretos, Miguel A. Cuba & Florida: Exploration of an Historic Connection, 1539-1991. Miami: Historical Association of Southern Florida, 1991.

Bucuvalas, Tina, Peggy A. Bulger, and Stetson Kennedy. South Florida Folklife. Folklife in the South Series, edited by William Lynwood Montell. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994.

Capron, Louis. "The Medicine Bundle of the Florida Seminole and the Green Corn Dance." In A Seminole Source Book, edited by William C. Sturtevant, 159-69. New York: Garland, 1987.

Colburn, David R., and Jane L. Landers, eds. The African American Heritage of Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995.

Dicenta, Joaquìn. Juan José. 1916. Edición de Jaime Mas. Madrid: Cátedra, 1982. A retelling of this story by Martin Noriega, learned from the reading of a lectore in a cigar factory in Ybor City, appears in this online collection.

Doering, J. Frederick. "Folk Customs and Beliefs of Greek Sponge-Fishers of Florida." Southern Folklore Quarterly 7 (June 1943): 105-7.

Douglas, Marjory Stoneham. The Everglades: River of Grass. 1947. Reprint, Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press, 1997.

---. Florida: The Long Frontier. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

---. Hurricane. New York: Rinehart, 1958.

Gannon, Michael, ed. The New History of Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995.

Garbarino, Merwyn S. The Seminole. Indians in North America series, edited by Frank W. Porter III. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989.

Georges, Robert A. Greek-American Folk Beliefs and Narratives: Survivals and Living Tradition. New York: Arno Press, 1980.

---. "The Greeks of Tarpon Springs: An American Folk Group." Southern Folklore Quarterly 29 (June 1965): 129-41.

Jumper, Betty Mae. Legends of the Seminoles. Foreword by James E. Billie, introduction by Peter B. Gallagher. Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press, 1994.

Kersey, Harry A., Jr. The Florida Seminoles and the New Deal, 1933-1942. Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1989.

---. "Seminoles." In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, 440-41. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

McWhiney, Grady. Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1988.

Mohl, Raymond A. "Black Immigrants: Bahamians in Early Twentieth Century Miami." The Florida Historical Quarterly 65 (January 1987): 271-97.

Mormino, Gary R. "Italians." In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, 434-35. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Mormino, Gary R., and George E. Possetta. The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and Their Latin Neighbors in Tampa, 1885-1985. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.

Morris, Allen C. Florida Place Names. Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press, 1995.

Moskos, Charles C. "Greeks." In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, 431-32. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Perez, Lisandro. "Cubans." In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, 427-28. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Pierce, Charles W. Pioneer Life in Southeast Florida. Edited by Donald W. Curl. Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1970.

Quinn, Jane. Minorcans in Florida: Their History and Heritage. St. Augustine, Fla.: Mission Press, 1975.

Ramirez, Manuel D. "Italian Folklore from Tampa, Florida." Southern Folklore Quarterly 5 (June 1941): 101-6.

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. Cross Creek. 1942. Reprint, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

Read, William A. Florida Place-Names of Indian Origin and Seminole Personal Names. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1934.

Reed, Veda. "West Indians." In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, 444-45. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Shubow, David. "Sponge Fishing on Florida's East Coast." Tequesta: the Journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida 29 (1969): 3-15.

Wehr, Paul. Like a Mustard Seed: The Slavia Settlement. Chuluota, Fla.: Mickler House Publishers, 1982.

Wilson, Charles Reagan. "'Crackers.'" In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, 1132. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

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Selected Resources for Unpublished Materials Relating to the Florida Writers' Project

The following institutions house materials created by and related to the work of the Writers' Project in Florida. Links have been provided to each institution's home page and, when available, to finding aids for the relevant collections.

NOTE: The Library of Congress does not maintain all of these Internet sites. Users should direct concerns about these links to their respective site administrators or Web masters.

This list is by no means complete. Additional information about Florida Writers' Project collection materials will be welcomed.

Washington, D.C. Library of Congress. American Folklife Center, Archive of Folk Culture.
Sound recordings, correspondence, and clippings re. Herbert Halpert, Zora Neale Hurston, Stetson Kennedy, Alton Morris, and Florida.
Original materials comprising this collection.
Washington, D.C. Library of Congress. Manuscript Division. United States Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project Records.
Florida Folklore in Federal Writers' Project files includes:
Beliefs, customs, and superstitions--approximately 750 pages.
Tall tales, animal tales, witch tales, ghost stories, legends, jokes, anecdotes, etc.--approximately 150 pages.
Language, dialects, jargon, proverbs, phrases, sayings, etc.--approximately 100 pages.
Florida Ethnic Studies in Federal Writers' Project files includes:
The Greeks of Tarpon Springs (University of Florida Master's Thesis by Gordon W. Lovejoy)--approximately 175 pages.
Notes on Greek wedding ceremonies--approximately 50 pages.
Notes for an ethnic study of Ybor City--approximately 400 pages.
Washington, D.C. National Archives and Records Administration. Records of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), 1922-1944. Record Group 69.
 
Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Broward County Library, Bienes Center for the Literary Arts (external link). Works Progress Administration Collection.
 
Gainesville, Florida. University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries, Department of Special Collections, P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History (external link).
Zora Neale Hurston Rare Books & Manuscripts, Manuscript Group 6 (external link).
Volume 3 of "Stories, Essays, Miscellaneous Mss." includes typescripts of some of Hurston's writings for the Florida Federal Writers' Project, including early manuscripts of The Florida Negro.
Tallahassee, Florida. Florida Department of State, Florida State Archives (external link). Florida Folklife Collection (external link).
Includes reproductions of WPA folklore field recordings.
Tampa, Florida. University of South Florida, Tampa Campus Library, Special Collections Department (external link).
Stetson Kennedy Papers (external link).
Works Progress Administration Florida Negro Papers (external link).
Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia State University, William Russell Pullen Library, Special Collections Department (external link).
Georgia Government Documentation Project (external link), Oral History Collection, Stetson Kennedy. [Box K-1, Folders 4-8]
Chapel Hill, North Carolina. University of North Carolina Library, Manuscripts Department (external link).
#3709, Federal Writers' Project Papers (external link).
#4193, Stetson Kennedy Papers, 1936-1978 (external link).

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