The People's Recorder

Episode Summary:

As host Chris Haley said, Zora Neale Hurston was a homegrown Florida treasure, known for her wit, charm, and a true gift for collecting folklore.  As part of her work with the Writers’ Project, she made over a dozen recordings with audio equipment borrowed from the Library of Congress.

She knew about the equipment from earlier field recordings she had made with folklorist Alan Lomax.  So, when she had the chance to use it for the Writers’ Project, Hurston “checked it out” from the Library. 

We do use short excerpts in our last episode, but the full recordings really are a lot of fun to listen to.  After you listen to these, we encourage you to go to the Library of Congress to listen to more!  

Links and Resources:

Preserving Songs and Culture: Zora Neale Hurston and the Federal Writers' Project

Original Recording: Georgia Skin

Original Recording: Dat Old Black Gal

Original Recording: Let the Deal Go Down

Original Recording: Mule on the Mount

Original Recording: Uncle Bud

Credits:

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editors: James Mirabello and Ethan Oser

Writer: James Mirabello

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

Library of Congress 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Florida Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was already a nationally known novelist, anthropologist and member of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. Yet she saw her publishing income dry up during the Great Depression even with the publication of her best-known novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. When she took a job with the Writers’ Project in Florida, her first assignment was to write for the WPA Guide to Florida. In the hands of truth-seekers like Hurston and a young white co-worker, Stetson Kennedy, the Florida WPA guidebook would reflect a wide range of Florida life, “warts and all,” including a report of violent voter suppression in the 1920s—until editors started to push back. This episode follows that conflict. 

Hurston also moved the Writers’ Project to record the songs and folktales of Florida culture. We hear from historians and bestselling novelist James McBride about how that work still resonates today.

Speakers:

Douglas Brinkley, historian 

Peggy Bulger, folklorist

Tameka Hobbs, historian

Stetson Kennedy, author and Project alum 

James McBride, author

Flo Turcotte, historian

Links and Resources:

Florida Memory Zora Neale Hurston Page

Zora Neale Hurston Collection at University of Florida

Florida Memory WPA Page

Florida Memory Stetson Kennedy Interview

NPR: Writer Finds Zora Neale Hurston’s Florida

Further Reading:

WPA Guide to Florida 

Go Gator and Muddy the Water by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Pamela Bordelon

Palmetto Country by Stetson Kennedy

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

Stetson Kennedy: Applied Folklore and Cultural Advocacy by Peggy Bulger

Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Facial Violence in Florida by Tameka Hobbs

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor and James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Assistant Editor: Amy A. Young

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Amesha McElveen and Skip Coblyn

Featuring music and archival material from: 

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Florida Humanities

Stetson Kennedy Foundation

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

As detailed in episodes 2 and 3, Roscoe Lewis’ unit on the Federal Writers’ Project conducted interviews with the survivors of slavery in Virginia. One member of the unit, a former teacher named Susie RC Byrd, interviewed dozens of formerly enslaved persons in Petersburg in a series of weekly meetings. Lewis and Byrd also arranged to borrow equipment from the University of Virginia to record songs performed at one of these meetings.  

We are sharing two of those recordings with you today, “Stomp Down” and “Gonna Shout.”  Please note, the audio quality is poor, but what is amazing is that these are the actual voices of those who survived slavery.  It’s easy to think that slavery was something that happened a long time ago, but hearing these voices, you’ll feel that slavery was not in the distant past.  

The soloist in “Stomp Down” is Sister Charlotte Taylor and the soloist in “Gonna Shout” is Reverend Ishrael Massie.  

Links and Resources: 

"Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories" at the Library of Congress

"Ex-Slave Narratives" at the Library of Virginia

American Folklife Center

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Editors: James Mirabello and Ethan Oser

Writer: James Mirabello

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Florida Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

This episode looks at communities that have suffered neglect from official history, and the example of African American landmarks and burial grounds in Virginia. Some families and communities have pushed to reclaim their place and spaces, often using tools employed earlier by the Federal Writers’ Project. Project workers often consulted landmarks and cemetery headstones to present a fuller picture of local history.  

In southern states, the Writers’ Project encountered the Lost Cause, the effort emerging after the Civil War that aimed to rewrite the war’s meaning and origins in slavery. The myth shaped the environment for white writers of the WPA Guide to Virginia, and it continues to hold influence even today. Yet the field research underlying the WPA guide – the details the federal writers uncovered in records, interviews and landmarks – as well as another Project publication, The Negro in Virginia, provide a way to untangle the Lost Cause myth. We probe that history with poet Kiki Petrosino as she researches her family’s Virginia history, and with historians at the Library of Virginia, the Alexandria Black History Museum and the University of Richmond.

Speakers:

Audrey Davis, historian

Julian Hayter, historian

Gregg Kimball, historian

Kiki Petrosino, poet

Alton Darden, Helping Hand Cemetery trustee

Maurice Darden, Helping Hand Cemetery trustee

Dolores Peterson, Helping Hand Cemetery trustee

Links and Resources:

Helping Hand Cemetery Club

"Unmarked" documentary

Photo Essay about East End Cemetery by Kiki Petrosino and Brian Palmer

Encyclopedia Virginia entry on the Lost Cause

Alexandria Black History Museum

Library of Virginia

Further Reading:

The Negro in Virginia by the Federal Writers’ Project 

White Blood by Kiki Petrosino

Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers’ Project, edited by Sara Rutkowski

How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith

The Dream is Lost by Julian Hayter

American City, Southern Place by Gregg Kimball 

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editors: Ethan Oser and Julie Chalhoub

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Skip Coblyn, James Mirabello, Jared Buggage, Jerry Ray and Danielle Nance 

Featuring music and archival material from: 

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

NPR

WUSA9

ABC News

News2Share

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

Get to know The People's Recorder host Chris Haley a little bit better. Chris is Director of Research, Education and Outreach, and the Study of the Legacy of Slavery at the Maryland State Archives. He's also an actor, a poet, and a filmmaker.  

In this special bonus episode, he speaks with Spark Media's Bright Djampa about growing up as his Uncle Alex's iconic book "Roots" became a phenomenon, his own love of history and genealogy, and the importance of the work done by those on the Federal Writers' Project. 

Links and Resources: 

Unmarked film. co-directed by Chris Haley

Chris Haley's website

Legacy of Slavery in Maryland, Maryland State Archives

National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom

Remembering Roots, History.com

Credits:

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Interviewer: Bright Djampa

Editors: Amelia Jarecke and Ethan Oser

Featuring music from Pond5

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Florida Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

In the depths of the Great Depression, the U.S government hired out-of-work writers and laid-off reporters and sent them out to record the stories of all kinds of Americans. Dubbed the Federal Writers’ Project, historians have called the program a giant "listening project." 

In this introductory episode, host Chris Haley sets the stage, laying out 1930s America, the New Deal, and the cultural forces that both supported and opposed the Writers’ Project.  We meet the agency’s national director Henry Alsberg and a handful of its writers across the country, including Zora Neale Hurston, Studs Terkel and Ralph Ellison. We also dig into the key questions that are still debated in public forums today: What history gets told?  And who gets to tell it?  

Speakers:

Scott Borchert, author

David Bradley, novelist

Douglas Brinkley, historian

Tameka Hobbs, historian

David Kipen, author

Dena Epstein, daughter of federal writer Hilda Polacheck

Studs Terkel, oral historian

Links and Resources:

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project

Born to Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project

Author Scott Borchert on the Federal Writers’ Project and the WPA guidebooks 

Article on Library of Congress symposium on The Millions 

Further Reading:

Soul of a People by David A. Taylor

Republic of Detours by Scott Borchert 

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

California in the 1930s by David Kipen

Hard Times by Studs Terkel

First-Person America by Ann Banks 

Henry Alsberg by Susan DeMasi

Long Past Slavery by Catherine A. Stewart

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editors: Steve Klingbiel and Ethan Oser

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Karen Simon, Robert Mirabello, Gary Hogan and Vince Brown

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

Library of Congress 

National Archives 

New York Public Library

Swing Time (RKO, 1936)

Smithsonian Folkways

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Florida Humanities

Virginia Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

California Humanities

Humanities Nebraska

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Summary:

The Federal Writers’ Project set out to create a series of books that held up a mirror to America, and chronicled communities that had long been ignored. Howard University professor Sterling Brown led the agency’s effort to document African American history in a series of books. In Virginia, chemistry professor Roscoe Lewis led a small team to produce the first book in that national series, titled The Negro in Virginia.  Lewis recruited a dozen Black writers and researchers across the state for a pioneering effort that recorded interviews with nearly 300 formerly enslaved people. They navigated a backlash from state editors and local officials. Against all odds, their book on Black life became a national Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and a milestone on the path to the Civil Rights movement.

Speakers:

Audrey Davis, historian

Julian Hayter, historian

Gregg Kimball, historian

Kiki Petrosino, poet

Links and Resources:

Photo essay about East End Cemetery by Kiki Petrosino and Brian Palmer in VQR

“Unmarked” documentary

Virginia Humanities Q&A with David A. Taylor

Washington Post article on Roscoe Lewis and The Negro in Virginia

Alexandria Black History Museum

Reading List:

The Negro in Virginia (Library of Virginia)

White Blood by Kiki Petrosino

Long Past Slavery: Representing Race in the Federal Writers’ Project by Catherine A. Stewart

To Walk About in Freedom by Carole Emberton

The Dream is Lost by Julian Hayter 

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editors: Ethan Oser and Julie Chalhoub

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Skip Coblyn, Sherry Carter-Brownell, Robert Mirabello, James Mirabello and Danielle Nance

Featuring music and archival material from:

Pond5

Library of Congress 

National Archives 

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Virginia Humanities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us on an unvarnished tour of America.

The People’s Recorder is a podcast about the 1930s Federal Writers’ Project: what it achieved, where it fell short, and what it means for Americans today.

Each episode features stories of individual writers, new places, and the project's impact on people's lives. Along the way we hear from historians, novelists, and others who shed light on that experience and unexpected connections to American society today.

The People’s Recorder is produced by Spark Media with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Florida Humanities, Virginia Humanities, Wisconsin Humanities, California Humanities and Humanities Nebraska.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.