Recovering the Worker in Meridel Le Sueur’s Worker Writers (1939/1982)

Abstract

ABSTRACT While Meridel Le Sueur’s oeuvre has continued to receive increased scholarly attention since the late twentieth century, less attention has been paid to her creative writing manual Worker Writers, originally printed in 1939 for the Works Progress Administration in Minnesota when Le Sueur taught creative writing for the Workers Education Project of the New Deal. Although West End Press republished in 1982 a revised edition of Worker Writers, this edition made omissions that have limited readers’ engagement with Le Sueur’s vision. Removed are the nine worker stories curated by Le Sueur; also removed are references to these stories in the instructional language as well as references to Midwest regional developments. Recovering the 1939 text enables a fuller understanding of Le Sueur’s approach to proletarian writing. The 1939 manual shows Le Sueur’s vision of proletarian expression informed by her commitment to the writing workshop; her understanding of the literacies workers possess vis-à-vis more conventional literary technique and aesthetics; and her mobilization of regional Americanist discourses to create an elevated platform for worker writing, especially in the Midwest. The manual should also be studied in the context of Le Sueur’s efforts to develop a cultural “infrastructure” for worker writing in the Midwest.