Richard Wright | |
|---|---|
 Wright in a 1939 photograph byCarl Van Vechten | |
| Born | Richard Nathaniel Wright (1908-09-04)September 4, 1908 Plantation,Roxie, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | November 28, 1960(1960-11-28) (aged 52) Paris, France |
| Occupation |
|
| Period | 1938–60 |
| Genre | Drama, fiction, non-fiction, autobiography |
| Notable works | Uncle Tom's Children,Native Son,Black Boy,The Outsider |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Richard Nathaniel Wright (1908–1960), also known as Nathan Paul, was an American author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially related to the plight ofAfrican Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries suffering discrimination and violence. His best known works include the novella collectionUncle Tom's Children (1938), the novelNative Son (1940), and the memoirBlack Boy (1945). Literary critics believe his work helped changerace relations in the United States in the mid-20th century.
Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on September 4, 1908, at Rucker's Plantation, between the train town ofRoxie and the larger river city ofNatchez, Mississippi.[1] He was the son of Nathan Wright, asharecropper,[1] and Ella (Wilson),[2] a schoolteacher.[1][3] His parents were born free after theCivil War; both sets of his grandparents had been born intoslavery and freed as a result of the war. Each of his grandfathers had taken part in the U.S. Civil War and gained freedom through service: his paternal grandfather, Nathan Wright, had served in the 28thUnited States Colored Troops; his maternal grandfather, Richard Wilson, escaped from slavery in the South to serve in theU.S. Navy as aLandsman in April 1865.[4]
Richard's father left the family when Richard was six years old, and he did not see Richard for 25 years. In 1911 or 1912, Ella moved to Natchez, Mississippi, to be with her parents. While living in his grandparents' home, he accidentally set the house on fire. Wright's mother was so angry that she beat him until he was unconscious.[5][6] In 1915, Ella put her sons in Settlement House, aMethodistorphanage, for a short time.[5][7] He was enrolled atHowe Institute inMemphis, Tennessee, from 1915 to 1916.[1] In 1916, his mother moved with Richard and his younger brother to live with her sister Maggie (Wilson) and Maggie's husband Silas Hoskins (born 1882) inElaine, Arkansas. This part of Arkansas was in theMississippi Delta, where former cotton plantations had been. The Wrights were forced to flee after Silas Hoskins "disappeared", reportedly killed by a white man who coveted his successful saloon business.[8] After his mother became incapacitated by a stroke, Richard was separated from his younger brother and lived briefly with his uncle Clark Wilson and aunt Jodie inGreenwood, Mississippi.[1] At the age of 12, Richard had not yet had a single complete year of schooling.
Soon Richard with his younger brother and mother returned to the home of his maternal grandmother, which was now in the state capital,Jackson, Mississippi, where he lived from early 1920 until late 1925. His grandparents, still angry at him for destroying their house, repeatedly beat Wright and his brother.[6] But while he lived there, he was finally able to attend school regularly. He attended the localSeventh-day Adventist school from 1920 to 1921, with his aunt Addie as his teacher.[1][5] After a year, at the age of 13 he entered the Jim Hill public school in 1921, where he was promoted to sixth grade after only two weeks.[9]
In his grandparents' Seventh-day Adventist home, Richard was miserable, largely because his controlling aunt and grandmother tried to force him to pray so he might build a relationship withGod. Wright later threatened to move out of his grandmother's home when she would not allow him to work on theAdventist Sabbath, Saturday. His aunt's and grandparents' overbearing attempts to control him caused him to carry over hostility towards Biblical and Christian teachings to solve life's problems. This theme would weave through his writings throughout his life.[7]
At the age of 15, while in eighth grade, Wright published his first story, "The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre", in the local Black newspaperSouthern Register. No copies survive.[7] In Chapter 7 ofBlack Boy, he described the story as about a villain who sought a widow's home.[10]
In 1923, after excelling in grade school and junior high, Wright earned the position of classvaledictorian of Smith Robertson Junior High School from which he graduated in May 1925.[1] He was assigned to write a speech to be delivered at graduation in a public auditorium. Before graduation day, he was called to the principal's office, where the principal gave him a prepared speech to present in place of his own. Richard challenged the principal, saying: "[T]he people are coming to hear the students, and I won't make a speech that you've written."[11] The principal threatened him, suggesting that Richard might not be allowed to graduate if he persisted, despite his having passed all the examinations. He also tried to entice Richard with an opportunity to become a teacher. Determined not to be called anUncle Tom, Richard refused to deliver the principal's address, written to avoid offending the white school district officials. He was able to convince everyone to allow him to read the words he had written himself.[7]
In September that year, Wright registered for mathematics, English, and history courses at the newLanier High School, constructed for black students in Jackson—the state's schools were segregated under its Jim Crow laws—but he had to stop attending classes after a few weeks of irregular attendance because he needed to earn money to support his family.[7][12]
In November 1925, at the age of 17, Wright moved on his own to Memphis, Tennessee. There, he fed his appetite for reading. His hunger for books was so great that Wright devised a successful ploy to borrow books from the segregated white library. Using a library card lent by a white coworker, which he presented with forged notes that claimed he was picking up books for the white man, Wright was able to obtain and read books forbidden to black people in the Jim Crow South. This stratagem also allowed him access to publications such asHarper's, theAtlantic Monthly, andThe American Mercury.[7]
He planned to have his mother come and live with him once he could support her, and in 1926, his mother and younger brother did rejoin him. Shortly thereafter, Richard resolved to leave theJim Crow South and go to Chicago.[13] His family joined theGreat Migration, when tens of thousands of blacks left the South to seek opportunities in the more economically prosperous northern and mid-western industrial cities.
Wright's childhood in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas shaped his lasting impressions of American racism.[14]
Wright and his family moved to Chicago in 1927, where he secured employment as aUnited States postal clerk.[8] He used his time in between shifts to study other writers includingH. L. Mencken, whose vision of the American South as a version of Hell made an impression. When he lost his job there during theGreat Depression, Wright was forced to go onrelief in 1931.[7] In 1932, he began attending meetings of theJohn Reed Club, aMarxist literary organization.[7][15] Wright established relationships and networked with party members. Wright formally joined theCommunist Party and the John Reed Club in late 1933 at the urging of his friend Abraham Aaron.[citation needed] As a revolutionary poet, he wrote proletarian poems ("We of the Red Leaves of Red Books", for example), forNew Masses and other communist-leaning periodicals.[7] A power struggle within the Chicago chapter of the John Reed Club had led to the dissolution of the club's leadership; Wright was told he had the support of the club's party members if he was willing to join the party.[16]
In 1933, Wright founded theSouth Side Writers Group, whose members includedArna Bontemps andMargaret Walker.[17][18] Through the group and his membership in the John Reed Club, Wright founded and editedLeft Front, a literary magazine. Wright began publishing his poetry ("A Red Love Note" and "Rest for the Weary", for example) there in 1934.[19] There is dispute about the demise in 1935 ofLeft Front Magazine as Wright blamed the Communist Party despite his protests.[20] It is, however, likely due to the proposal at the 1934 Midwest Writers Congress that the John Reed Club be replaced by a Communist Party-sanctioned First American Party Congress.[citation needed] Throughout this period, Wright continued to contribute toNew Masses magazine, revealing the path his writings would ultimately take.[21]
By 1935, Wright had completed the manuscript of his first novel,Cesspool, which was rejected by eight publishers and published posthumously asLawd Today (1963).[8][22] This first work featured autobiographical anecdotes about working at a post office in Chicago during the Great Depression.[23]
In January 1936, his story "Big Boy Leaves Home" was accepted for publication in the anthologyNew Caravan and the anthologyUncle Tom's Children, focusing on black life in the rural American South.[24]
In February of that year, he began working with theNational Negro Congress (NNC), speaking at the Chicago convention on "The Role of the Negro Artist and Writer in the Changing Social Order".[25] His ultimate goal (looking at other labor unions as inspiration) was the development of NNC-sponsored publications, exhibits, and conferences alongside theFederal Writers' Project to get work for black artists.[25]
In 1937, he became the Harlem editor of theDaily Worker. This assignment compiled quotes from interviews preceded by an introductory paragraph, thus allowing him time for other pursuits like the publication ofUncle Tom's Children a year later.[19]
Pleased by his positive relations with white Communists in Chicago, Wright was later humiliated in New York City by some white party members who rescinded an offer to find housing for him when they learned his race.[26] Some black Communists denounced Wright as a "bourgeois intellectual". Wright was essentiallyautodidactic. He had been forced to end his public education to support his mother and brother after completing junior high school.[27]
Throughout the Soviet pact with Nazi Germany in 1940, Wright continued to focus his attention on racism in the United States.[28] He would ultimately break from the Communist Party when they broke from a tradition against segregation and racism and joined Stalinists supporting the US entering World War II in 1941.[28]
Wright insisted that young communist writers be given space to cultivate their talents. He later described this episode through his fictional character Buddy Nealson,an African-American communist, in his essay "I tried to be a Communist", published in theAtlantic Monthly in 1944. This text was an excerpt of his autobiography scheduled to be published asAmerican Hunger but was removed from the actual publication ofBlack Boy upon request by theBook of the Month Club.[29] Indeed, his relations with the party turned violent; Wright was threatened at knifepoint byfellow-traveler co-workers, denounced as aTrotskyite in the street by strikers, and physically assaulted by former comrades when he tried to join them during the 1936Labour Day march.[30]
In Chicago in 1932, Wright began writing with theFederal Writer's Project and became a member of theAmerican Communist Party. In 1937, he relocated to New York and became the Bureau Chief of the communist publication, theDaily Worker.[31] He would write more than 200 articles for the publication from 1937 to 1938. This allowed him to cover stories and issues that interested him, revealing depression-era America into light with well-written prose.[32]
He worked on the Federal Writers' Project guidebook to the city,New York Panorama (1938), and wrote the book's essay onHarlem. Through the summer and fall, Wright wrote more than 200 articles for theDaily Worker and helped edit a short-lived literary magazine,New Challenge. The year was also a landmark for him because he met and developed a friendship with writerRalph Ellison that would last for years. Wright was awarded theStory magazine first prize of $500 for his short story "Fire and Cloud".[33]
After receiving theStory prize in early 1938, Wright shelved his manuscript ofLawd Today and dismissed his literary agent, John Troustine. He hired Paul Reynolds, the well-known agent of poetPaul Laurence Dunbar, to represent him. Meanwhile, the Story Press offered the publisherHarper all of Wright's prize-entry stories for a book, and Harper agreed to publish the collection.
Wright gained national attention for the collection of four short stories entitledUncle Tom's Children (1938). He based some stories onlynching in theDeep South. The publication and favorable reception ofUncle Tom's Children improved Wright's status with the Communist Party and enabled him to establish a reasonable degree of financial stability. He was appointed to the editorial board ofNew Masses.Granville Hicks, a prominent literary critic and Communist sympathizer, introduced him at leftist teas inBoston. By May 6, 1938, excellent sales had provided Wright with enough money to move to Harlem, where he began writing the novelNative Son, which was published in 1940.
Based on his collected short stories, Wright applied for and was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship, which gave him a stipend allowing him to completeNative Son. During this period, he rented a room in the home of friends Herbert and Jane Newton, an interracial couple and prominentCommunists whom Wright had known in Chicago.[34] They had moved to New York and lived at 109 Lefferts Place inBrooklyn, in theFort Greene neighborhood.[35]
After publication,Native Son was selected by theBook of the Month Club as its first book by an African-American author. It was a daring choice. The lead character,Bigger Thomas, is bound by the limitations that society places on African Americans. Unlike most in this situation, he gains his ownagency and self-knowledge only by committing heinous acts. Wright's characterization of Bigger led to him being criticized for his concentration on violence in his works. In the case ofNative Son, people complained that he portrayed a black man in ways that seemed to confirm whites' worst fears. The period following publication ofNative Son was a busy time for Wright. In July 1940, he went to Chicago to do research for a folk history of blacks to accompany photographs selected byEdwin Rosskam. While in Chicago, he visited theAmerican Negro Exposition withLangston Hughes,Arna Bontemps andClaude McKay.
Wright traveled toChapel Hill, North Carolina, to collaborate with playwrightPaul Green on a dramatic adaptation ofNative Son. In January 1941 Wright received the prestigiousSpingarn Medal of theNAACP for noteworthy achievement. His playNative Son opened on Broadway in March 1941, withOrson Welles as director, to generally favorable reviews. Wright also wrote the text to accompany a volume of photographs chosen by Rosskam, which were almost completely drawn from the files of theFarm Security Administration. The FSA had employed top photographers to travel around the country and capture images of Americans. Their collaboration,12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States, was published in October 1941 to wide critical acclaim.
Wright's memoirBlack Boy (1945) describes his early life fromRoxie up until his move to Chicago at the age of 19. It includes his clashes with hisSeventh-day Adventist family, his troubles with white employers, and social isolation. It also describes his intellectual journey through these struggles.American Hunger, which was published posthumously in 1977, was originally intended by Wright as the second volume ofBlack Boy. TheLibrary of America edition of 1991 finally restored the book to its original two-volume form.[36]
American Hunger details Wright's participation in the John Reed Clubs and the Communist Party, which he left in 1942. The book implies he left earlier, but he did not announce his withdrawal until 1944.[37] In the book's restored form, Wright used thediptych structure to compare the certainties and intolerance of organized communism, which condemned "bourgeois" books and certain members, with similar restrictive qualities of fundamentalist organized religion. Wright disapproved ofJoseph Stalin'sGreat Purge in theSoviet Union.
Following a stay of a few months inQuébec, Canada, including a lengthy stay in the village of Sainte-Pétronille on theÎle d'Orléans,[38] Wright moved to Paris in 1946. He became a permanent Americanexpatriate.[39]
In Paris, Wright became friends with French writersJean-Paul Sartre andAlbert Camus, whom he had met while still in New York, and he and his wife became particularly good friends withSimone de Beauvoir, who stayed with them in 1947.[40] However, as Michel Fabre argues, Wright's existentialist leanings were more influenced bySøren Kierkegaard,Edmund Husserl, and especiallyMartin Heidegger.[41] In following Fabre's argument, with respect to Wright's existentialist proclivities during the period of 1946 to 1951, Hue Woodson suggests that Wright's exposure to Husserl and Heidegger "directly came as an intended consequence of the inadequacies of Sartre's synthesis ofexistentialism andMarxism for Wright".[42] HisExistentialist phase was expressed in his second novel,The Outsider (1953), which described an African-American character's involvement with the Communist Party in New York. He also became friends with fellow expatriate writersChester Himes andJames Baldwin. His relationship with the latter ended in acrimony after Baldwin published his essay "Everybody's Protest Novel"[22] (collected inNotes of a Native Son), in which he criticized Wright's portrayal of Bigger Thomas as stereotypical. In 1954 Wright publishedSavage Holiday.
After becoming a French citizen in 1947, Wright continued to travel through Europe, Asia, and Africa. He drew material from these trips for numerous nonfiction works. In 1949, Wright contributed to the anti-communist anthologyThe God That Failed; his essay had been published in theAtlantic Monthly three years earlier and was derived from the unpublished portion ofBlack Boy. He was invited to join theCongress for Cultural Freedom, which he rejected, correctly suspecting that it had connections with theCIA. Fearful of links between African Americans and communists, theFBI had Wright under surveillance starting in 1943. With the heightened communist fears of the 1950s, Wright wasblacklisted by Hollywood movie studio executives. But in 1950, he starred as Bigger Thomas in anArgentinian film version ofNative Son.
In mid-1953, Wright traveled to theGold Coast, whereKwame Nkrumah was leading the country to independence from British rule, to be established asGhana. Before Wright returned to Paris, he gave a confidential report to the United States consulate inAccra on what he had learned about Nkrumah and his political party. After Wright returned to Paris, he met twice with an officer from theU.S. State Department. The officer's report includes what Wright had learned from Nkrumah's adviserGeorge Padmore about Nkrumah's plans for the Gold Coast after independence. Padmore, aTrinidadian living in London, believed Wright to be a good friend. His many letters in the Wright papers at Yale's Beinecke Library attest to this, and the two men continued their correspondence. Wright's book on his African journey,Black Power, was published in 1954; its London publisher wasDennis Dobson, who also published Padmore's work.[43]
Whatever political motivations Wright had for reporting to American officials, he was also an American who wanted to stay abroad and needed their approval to have his passport renewed. According to Wright biographerAddison Gayle, a few months later Wright talked to officials at the American embassy in Paris about people he had met in the Communist Party; at the time these individuals were being prosecuted in the US under theSmith Act.[44]
Historian Carol Polsgrove explored why Wright appeared to have little to say about the increasing activism of thecivil rights movement during the 1950s in the United States. She found that he was under what his friend Chester Himes called "extraordinary pressure" to avoid writing about the US.[45] AsEbony magazine delayed publishing his essay "I Choose Exile", Wright finally suggested publishing it in a white periodical. He believed that "a white periodical would be less vulnerable to accusations of disloyalty".[45] He thought theAtlantic Monthly was interested, but in the end, the piece went unpublished.[45][46]
In 1955, Wright visitedIndonesia for theBandung Conference.[47] He recorded his observations on the conference as well as on Indonesian cultural conditions inThe Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference. Wright praised the conference extensively.[47] He gave at least two lectures to Indonesian cultural groups, includingPEN Club Indonesia, and he interviewed Indonesian artists and intellectuals in preparation to writeThe Color Curtain.[48] Several Indonesian artists and intellectuals whom Wright met, later commented on how he had depicted Indonesian cultural conditions in histravel writing.[49]
Other works by Wright includedWhite Man, Listen! (1957) and a novelThe Long Dream (1958), which was adapted as a play and produced in New York in 1960 byKetti Frings. It explores the relationship between a man named Fish and his father.[50] A collection ofshort stories,Eight Men, was published posthumously in 1961, shortly after Wright's death. These works dealt primarily with the poverty, anger, and protests of northern and southern urban black Americans.
His agent, Paul Reynolds, sent strongly negative criticism of Wright's 400-pageIsland of Hallucinations manuscript in February 1959.[citation needed] Despite that, in March Wright outlined a novel in which his character Fish was to be liberated from racial conditioning and become dominating. In February 1959, Wright was visited at his home byMartin Luther King Jr. onhis way to India. By May 1959, Wright wanted to leave Paris and live in London. He felt French politics had become increasingly submissive to United States pressure. The peaceful Parisian atmosphere he had enjoyed had been shattered by quarrels and attacks instigated by enemies of the expatriate black writers.
On June 26, 1959, after a party marking the French publication ofWhite Man, Listen!, Wright became ill. He suffered a virulent attack ofamoebic dysentery, probably contracted during his 1953 stay on the Gold Coast. By November 1959, his wife had found a London apartment, but Wright's illness and "four hassles in twelve days" with British immigration officials ended his desire to live in England.[citation needed]
On February 19, 1960, Wright learned from his agent Reynolds that the New York premiere of the stage adaptation ofThe Long Dream had received such bad reviews that the adapter, Ketti Frings, had decided to cancel further performances. Meanwhile, Wright was running into added problems trying to getThe Long Dream published in France. These setbacks prevented his finishing revisions ofIsland of Hallucinations, for which he was trying to get a publication commitment fromDoubleday and Company.
In June 1960, Wright recorded a series of discussions for French radio, dealing primarily with his books and literary career. He also addressed the racial situation in the United States and the world, and specifically denounced American policy in Africa. In late September, to cover extra expenses for his daughter Julia's move from London to Paris to attend theSorbonne, Wright wrote blurbs for record jackets for Nicole Barclay, director of the largest record company in Paris.
In spite of his financial straits, Wright refused to compromise his principles. He declined to participate in a series of programs for Canadian radio because he suspected American control. For the same reason, he rejected an invitation from the Congress for Cultural Freedom to go to India to speak at a conference in memory ofLeo Tolstoy. Still interested in literature, Wright helpedKyle Onstott get his novelMandingo (1957) published in France.
Wright's last display of explosive energy occurred on November 8, 1960, in his polemical lecture "The Situation of the Black Artist and Intellectual in the United States", delivered to students and members of theAmerican Church in Paris. He argued that American society reduced the most militant members of the black community to slaves whenever they wanted to question the racial status quo. He offered as proof the subversive attacks of the Communists againstNative Son and the quarrels thatJames Baldwin and other authors sought with him. On November 26, 1960, Wright talked enthusiastically with Langston Hughes about his workDaddy Goodness and gave him the manuscript.
On November 28, 1960, Wright went to the Eugène Gibez clinic in Paris for a periodic check-up of his amoebic dysentery condition. He died in the clinic that night of sudden heart failure.[51] He was 52. He was interred inPère Lachaise Cemetery.[52][53][54] Wright's daughter Julia, and his close friend and fellow expatriateOllie Harrington, were both suspicious of the circumstances of Wright's death and alleged that the author may have been murdered by the U.S. government.[55][56]
A number of Wright's works have been published posthumously. In addition, some of Wright's more shocking passages dealing with race, sex, and politics were cut or omitted before original publication of works during his lifetime. In 1991, unexpurgated versions ofNative Son,Black Boy, and his other works were published. In addition, in 1994, his novellaRite of Passage was published for the first time.[57]
In the last years of his life, Wright had become enamored of the Japanese poetic formhaiku and wrote more than 4,000 such short poems. In 1998 a book was published (Haiku: This Other World) with 817 of his own favorite haiku. Many of these haiku have an uplifting quality even as they deal with coming to terms with loneliness, death, and the forces of nature.
A collection of Wright's travel writings was published by theUniversity Press of Mississippi in 2001. At his death, Wright left an unfinished book,A Father's Law,[58] dealing with a black policeman and the son he suspects of murder. His daughter Julia Wright publishedA Father's Law in January 2008. An omnibus edition containing Wright's political works was published under the titleThree Books from Exile: Black Power; The Color Curtain; andWhite Man, Listen!
In August 1939, withRalph Ellison as best man,[59] Wright married Dhimah Rose Meidman,[60] a modern dance teacher of Russian Jewish ancestry. The marriage ended a year later.
On March 12, 1941, Wright married Ellen Poplar (née Poplowitz),[61][62] a Communist organizer from Brooklyn.[63] They had two daughters: Julia, born in 1942, and Rachel, born in 1949.[62]
Ellen Wright, who died on April 6, 2004, aged 92, was the executor of Wright's estate. In this capacity, she unsuccessfully sued a biographer, the poet and writerMargaret Walker, inWright v. Warner Books, Inc. She was a literary agent, and her clients includedSimone de Beauvoir,Eldridge Cleaver, andViolette Leduc.[64][65]
Black Boy became an instant best-seller upon its publication in 1945.[70] Wright's stories published during the 1950s disappointed some critics who said that his move to Europe had alienated him from African Americans and separated him from his emotional and psychological roots.[71] Many of Wright's works failed to satisfy the rigid standards ofNew Criticism during a period when the works of younger black writers gained in popularity.[72]
During the 1950s Wright grew more internationalist in outlook. While he accomplished much as an important public literary and political figure with a worldwide reputation, his creative work did decline.[73]
While interest inBlack Boy ebbed during the 1950s, this has remained one of his best selling books. Since the late 20th century, critics have had a resurgence of interest in it.Black Boy remains a vital work of historical, sociological, and literary significance whose seminal portrayal of one black man's search for self-actualization in a racist society strongly influenced the works of African-American writers who followed, such asJames Baldwin andRalph Ellison.John A. Williams included a fictionalized version of Wright's life and death in his 1967 novelThe Man Who Cried I Am.[74]
It is generally agreed that the influence of Wright'sNative Son is not a matter of literary style or technique.[75] Rather, this book affected ideas and attitudes, andNative Son has been a force in the social and intellectual history of the United States in the last half of the 20th century. "Wright was one of the people who made me conscious of the need to struggle," said writerAmiri Baraka.[76]
During the 1970s and 1980s, scholars published critical essays about Wright in prestigious journals. Richard Wright conferences were held on university campuses from Mississippi to New Jersey. A new film version ofNative Son, with a screenplay byRichard Wesley, was released in December 1986. Certain Wright novels became required reading in a number of American high schools, universities and colleges.[77]
Recent critics have called for a reassessment of Wright's later work in view of his philosophical project. Notably,Paul Gilroy has argued that "the depth of his philosophical interests has been either overlooked or misconceived by the almost exclusively literary inquiries that have dominated analysis of his writing".[78][79]
Wright was featured in a 90-minute documentary about the WPA Writers' Project entitledSoul of a People: Writing America's Story (2009).[80] His life and work during the 1930s is highlighted in the companion book,Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America.[81]
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