Toward a Twenty-First-Century Federal Writers’ Project

Abstract

This article draws parallels between the Great Depression and the great recession that began in 2007 in light of the history, methods, themes, and relevance of the New Deal Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) to contemporary community writing projects. Through a critical analysis of the FWP’s legacy as both a twentieth-century American epic and a lesson in powerful, sometimes flawed methodologies, this article suggests that a twenty-first-century reprise of the FWP would unify and inform already existing university-community partnerships to enact the “public turn” called for in composition and other disciplines at a critical juncture in American—and world—history.