Federal Project Number One

During the Great Depression, our federal government created the Work Progress Administration ("WPA") as part of the New Deal. The WPA hired millions of Americans to construct public works and projects, like roads and buildings. But, the WPA also did more than build a bunch of big stuff. It also undertook major initiatives to use art and literature to record our culture and document our history. 

One of those initiatives was known as Federal Project Number One. At its height, this Federal Project One employed 40,000 actors, artists, musicians and writers. About 10,000 of those individuals were writers who worked as part of the Federal Writers' Project ("FWP").  Their task was to create a "self-portrait of America," through written histories and guidebooks. All of their work was to be done without discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, religion or political affiliation. It was diversity, equity and inclusion long before DEI ever entered the lexicon of our country. 

One of the FWP's written histories became known as the Slave Narration Project. This project involved writers tracking down former slaves to record their experiences. The work resulted in the collection of 2,300 first-person accounts, along with 500 pictures. I previously wrote about this effort when I was exploring the origins of barbecue. I tracked down the first hand account of a former slave, Wesley Jones, who talked about how he prepared barbecue while enslaved in South Carolina. I read about other peoples' experiences, which were stories that, but for the Federal Writers Project and the Slave Narration Project, would have been lost to time. 

Today, we face another threat to knowledge and history. This threat is far worse than anything confronted in the past.  Unlike the Roosevelt administration, which sought to preserve this information from the natural losses that occur over time, the Trump administration is actively whitewashing our history, erasing the stories of marginalized, disadvantaged communities of different races, national origins, races, ability, gender identity and gender preference. Websites are not just being taken down, they are being erased. In some cases, there are efforts to rewrite that history, using falsehoods to obscure the truths. 

Watching all of this unfold got me to thinking about Federal Project Number One again. I have been thinking about how, in my own small way, I have been collecting some stories about not just people, but culture, community and history. Some of those stories are the types of history that have been targeted by this administration. I thought it was time for me to create my own Federal Project Number One. 

That has led to this effort, which will become my own Federal Project Number One. It will be 21st century effort to tell the stories about food, culture and community ofumarginalized communities, of working people, and their contribution to not just what we eat, but who we are. It will be my (very small) contribution to fighting back against a white supremacist administration, supported by billionaires, who have turned facts into enemies and seek to deny us the trth about ourselves. 

This is an evolving project. Admittedly, many of the topics and stories have been reported by others. Their work serves as a starting point and reference material. If I can add to that work through my own research and efforts, I will do so. But, the most important thing is that these stories need repeating. Like a continuing heartbeat, each retelling of the story keeps it alive. That is the goal of this project: to keep stories alive when during the times when the threat is the greatest. 

As of right now, I have two general efforts. The first is a historical foodways guide, What Did You Learn in School Today, which draws upon a Pete Seeger song to focus upon the history and contribution of minority, marginalized and other communities to what could be considered our common foodways. The second effort, This Land is Your Land, invokes a Woody Guthry song to focus more on the specific stories of individuals, and their relationship to the food we eat.

What Did You Learn in School Today (Pete Seeger Initiative)

1.  Kitchen Pepper. The story of how enslaved cooks flavored many of the dishes they prepared with a spice mix that combined ingredients from their homelands and from around the world.

2.  Fish Pepper Sauce. A brief exploration of the cultivation of the fish pepper in the Chesapeake Bay region, and its varied uses. 

This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie Initiative)

1.  Wesley Jones' Barbecue and Antebellum Sauce. This is the post that started it all. It is my first effort to explore the origin of barbecue, focusing on the techniques used by African slaves prior to their emancipation, as told by Wesley Jones through the Federal Writers Project. 

2.  Bill Bayley's West Indies Salad. The story of a small grocery store owner who created a dish that features large in the cuisine around Mobile Bay, Alabama. 

3. Edith Dyson's Crab Cakes. The story of a granddaughter's memories, of her grandfather, a farmer who lost everything on his beloved farm in the town of Fordtown, which disappeared with the emergence of a naval air station, all of which came to light with a crabcake recipe.

More posts are in the works, so please check back again. 

PEACE.