Travel Writing, Courtesy of Uncle Sam


	Travel Writing, Courtesy of Uncle Sam

Elisabeth Eaves

7-15-2008 10:38 AM

1198 views

Elisabeth Eaves says:

I knew that Roosevelt's New Deal created government jobs for blue collar workers. But who knew that travel writers also benefited -- including the likes of Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Eudora Welty? My capitalist tendencies notwithstanding, I can't help but be charmed by writer-employment schemes. Doubly charming (to me anyway): This piece is about my former home state of Washington.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/d2fcbef7-4739-485c-b981-0741a7c15523/63D4D461-052E-48A5-B51B-78F0D16D8BF6/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15wpa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15wpa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nytimes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15wpa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">Winthrop — population 365, altitude 1,765 feet, the town at the “end of hard surfacing” — was soon committed to paper, as were thousands of other rural outposts and urban areas across the country in the 1930s and ’40s.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15wpa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">Writers, photographers and editors, some as famous as <A title="More articles about Saul Bellow" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/saul_bellow/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Saul Bellow</A>, <A title="More articles about Zora Neale Hurston." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/zora_neale_hurston/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Zora Neale Hurston</A> and <A title="Eudora Welty retrospective with articles and reviews." href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/22/specials/welty.html?inline=nyt-per">Eudora Welty</A> and others long forgotten, earned as little as $20 a week to produce a series of travel guides about America.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15wpa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">Retracing some of the routes of the American Guide Series, with the old books as companions, reveals how much the nation has been reshaped, from the decline of bustling manufacturing towns in New England to the rise of California into a global center. The guides were conceived as part of a jobs program, born  of President <A title="More articles about Franklin Delano Roosevelt." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/franklin_delano_roosevelt/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Franklin D. Roosevelt</A>’s <A title="More articles about the Works Progress Administration." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/works_progress_administration/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Works Progress Administration</A>. But they became something more: literary windows into an era and its aspirations.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/63D4D461-052E-48A5-B51B-78F0D16D8BF6/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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