| Abstract: | With the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New Deal in 2008,Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers’Project takes on a meaningful and significant role in the recoveryand interpretation of the Federal Writers’ Project. Itprovides an opportunity for us to think about the historiographyof oral history. Hirsch's essential question deserves an answer:"Who do oral historians want for ancestors? And why?" (142). Seventy-five years ago, in 1933, the newly elected presidentFranklin D. Roosevelt and his administration addressed the nationalcrisis of the Great Depression by creating the innovative "alphabetagencies" and programs, a series of |
