The Federal Project Number One that is also referred to as Federal One was a collection of projects under the Works Progress Administration for the employment of artists, musicians, actors and writers on the relief rolls. Funds of $27 million dollars was allocated from the $4.88 billion allocated to the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. The first official announcement of what was to become known as Federal Project Number One came on August 2, 1935 when the directors of the original four arts-related projects were made known. The original divisions of the program, with the fifth project later separated:

  • Federal Arts Project
  • Federal Music Project
  • Federal Theatre Project
  • Federal Writers’ Project
  • Historical Records Survey (originally part of the Federal Writers’ Project)

Federal Arts Project

Federal Music Project

Federal Theatre Project

Federal Writers’ Project

Oklahoma’s Federal Writers’ Project was from the beginning surrounded by controversy most due to the Oklahoma’s first director that was appointed by Henry Alsberg, the national director. William Cunningham was a published author, his first book The Green Corn Rebellion, who Alsberg believed was familiar with Oklahoma history and culture even though he was a former Marxian economics teacher at Commonwealth Labor College in Mena, Arkansas. His continued use of his background and misuse of the power given to him cause so much controversy that relief employees of the Writers’ Project and U.S. Senators wanted him replaced multiple times. At one time a report was sent to the national office about his misuse of power to give workers who had communist beliefs to get the better higher paying jobs. This report was sent to Harry Hopkins who sent an investigator to Oklahoma, who found no substantial evidence to support the report. Although his communist background really did not effect the projects the the Federal One produced he’s major issue was really dealing with the demand to have at least 60% of the work force from the relief rolls. Since most of those coming from the relief rolls were not skilled writers or researchers it cause Director Cunningham to continuously complain to the national director.

The largest project of the Writers’ Project was a national mandated requirement to produce a guide book for the American Guide Series. This book was to be written with historic information, cultural information, and a tour guide of the state. Under Cunningham’s directorship lots of information was gather but no manuscripts were produced and when in the fall of 1939 when U.S. Congress shut down Federal One and forced the states to find local sponsors, Governor Leon Phillips refused to sponsor the project further if Cunningham was the director.

On April 22, 1940 with Angie Debo as the new director the project reopened with the goal of finishing the Guide Book. Since the information that had already been collected was considered to be filled with labor and communist ideas, a 1939 draft that was approved by the Washington office was never published. Therefore Noam Penkower, a biographer of the Federal Writers’ Project claimed, “Historians, apparently allergic to deadlines, fared poorest as state directors. Their insistence on super-thoroughness was out of step with the guides’ purposes”. It was probably because of Angie Debo’s “super-thoroughness” that Oklahoma’s state guide was the very last to be published.

Historical Records Survey

This project was a nationwide project funded by the Works Progress Administration from the winter of 1935 to 1942 with the purpose of employing needy unemployed historians, lawyers, professors, teachers, clerks, and research workers. Those involved complied inventories of historic materials, particularly unpublished government records, privately owned historical materials used by government officials, legal scholars, researchers, and historians within the states county buildings and universities. The project was originally a separate unit in the Federal Writers’ Project but by November 1936 the size and need of more funds and workers cause a moved as a project under its own heading.

In the state of Oklahoma the organization was placed under the direction of Robert H. Slover who was already the State Supervisor for the Historic Records Survey Unit. Slover’s work on the states project was recognized as so well supervised that by July 1938 he was appointed Regional Supervisor for the western states and retained this title until January 1939. One of the largest projects under the umbrella of Historical Records Survey was the Survey of County Records whose mission was to inventory the extant public records of counties by locating, describing, and classifying government records, manuscripts, and church records in each of the 77 counties. This project not only collected and inventoried these items but also help to moved these items to archival places such as the Oklahoma Libraries Building, Oklahoma Historical Society Building, and many other sites. Due to this projects efforts the Federal Writers’ Project of the American Guide Series for Oklahoma and Tulsa were written, as well as having a central location of historic documents for future researchers. [1]

So many different types of material was located within the state at County Courthouses, local libraries, city halls, and many other buildings that the state could not hold all of these within the Historical Society Building, which at the time is what is now the Supreme Court Building. Since these materials could not be stored in one place, inventories were created to identify the location of those items so researchers would know where to locate them while during research. Oklahoma from the beginning of the project was considered a model since so much first hand documents of Indian achieves were located within the state.

It was the coming war and lowering of funds that stop the collection process, and even though private sponsorship and state funding helped in later years so much data was collected, before computers, that the are still located throughout the state.

Sources

Bibliography

This page still under development