Aurora Lucero-White

As we work to gather support for H.R.3054 – 21st Century Federal Writers’ Project Act, we inevitably look back at the work of some of the 6,600 writers employed by the WPA Federal Writers’ Project. In this series we introduce a few that you may not have heard of, even though some of them were and continue to be very influential.

Introducing Aurora Lucero-White.

Aurora Lucero-White, a proud Nuevomexicana Author, Folklorist, Educator and Suffragist is credited with preserving New Mexican traditional culture as a member of the WPA New Mexico Writers’ Project, in Los Hispanos and several other books.

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Looking Back at the WPA Federal Writers’ Project – 85 years Later

“If the Writers’ Project had only ever kept young, broke writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Kenneth Rexroth and John Cheever off the dole, it would have been enough.”

David Kipen
May 6, 2020

Reinventing the Depression-era Federal Writers’ Project could help reintroduce America to itself

David Kipen Opinion contributor – USA TODAY

Congress is going to the movies this week, and you’re invited. 

Rep. Ted Lieu has arranged a free public virtual screening for the nation – and for his colleagues on the Hill – of Soul of a People, a terrific Smithsonian documentary about the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s. This follows a bill he and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez introduced in May, the 21st-Century Federal Writers’ Project Act, which is jockeying for inclusion this week in the upcoming $3.5 trillion human infrastructure package. 

The bill would hire 900 writers to reinvent a New Deal initiative whose work can still educate and delight readers 85 eighty years later. Among the Federal Writers’ Project’s many gifts, it created the American Guides, a shelf of useful, cheap, shockingly well-written book-length explorations of all 48 states at the time, plus Puerto Rico and Alaska. The Project also recorded roughly 10,000 oral histories around the country, including 2,300 invaluable interviews with formerly enslaved people. 

Editorial: It’s time for a new Federal Writers’ Project

By The Times Editorial Board
June 20, 2021

The narrative of Sarah Gulder, who had been born into slavery, was collected by the New Deal-era Federal Writers’ Project in 1936. A bill in Congress would revive the program.(Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group ) By The Times Editorial Board June 20, 2021 3 AM PT

There is no denying that America took it in the teeth with the COVID-19 pandemic and related financial crisis, a one-two combination that was disproportionate in its impacts. And it had particularly dire consequences for journalism, adding to strains on a business model that relies on advertising and readers to stay afloat.

Between 2008 and 2019, nearly 1 in 4 newsroom jobs disappeared, according to the Pew Research Center. Since the onset of the pandemic, one-third of large-city newspapers reported fresh layoffs. And that doesn’t measure the hits endured by freelancers as outlets’ budgets dried up.

REPS LIEU AND LEGER FERNANDEZ INTRODUCE THE 21ST CENTURY FEDERAL WRITERS’ PROJECT ACT

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) and Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) introduced legislation that would create a new grant program administered by the Department of Labor to hire America’s unemployed and underemployed journalists and writers. In April 2020, the New York Times estimated that 36,000 workers at news outlets had been laid off, or had their positions reduced, and these numbers do not account for freelance and gig writers. Inspired by the 1935 Federal Writers’ Project of the New Deal Era, the 21st Century Federal Writers’ Project Act will help address the mass unemployment of writers. It will also create a nationally administered and searchable repository that archives the stories of America’s history. 

“I am pleased to introduce the 21st Century Federal Writers’ Project Act today to coincide with the 86th Anniversary of the original Works Progress Administration, including the Federal Writer’s Project,” said Rep. Lieu. “This program will revive the Federal Writers’ Project of the New Deal Era by creating a new grant program to hire America’s unemployed and underemployed writers. Many writers were laid off or had their work reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, many young people have graduated into an economy that has not been able to provide opportunities to leverage their skill sets. My bill would create a new jobs program for these talented and high skilled individuals, while allowing them to capture invaluable American stories that may otherwise go untold. The New Federal Writers Program will be vital to our economic recovery to build back better.”