From Politics to Personalism: A Historical Perspective

Abstract

This chapter traces the FWP’s documentary methods and aims as articulated in critical histories and archival fieldwork instructions and speeches. The Project’s approach to documenting individual stories can be tied to President Roosevelt’s own interest in personalizing the nation’s economic crisis through individual accounts of struggle. Central to this discussion is Benjamin Botkin, the FWP’s national folklore editor, and Sterling Brown, the Negro Affairs editor, who together led the FWP’s efforts to compile a vast and unprecedented collection of folklore and oral histories, including those of former slaves. Both men advocated for the use of literary techniques in fieldwork and both believed that the creative writer—more than the trained folklorist—could humanize folklore, making it accessible to the general public and a vehicle for promoting awareness of and appreciation for the nation’s cultural diversity.