Federal Writers Project Doc Opens

By Jason Boog 

That’s the great writer Studs Terkel talking with the Smithsonian Channel about the Great Depression. This weekend the channel will debut a documentary about the Depression-era Federal Writers Project called Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story.

The documentary is based on a book by journalist David A. Taylor , an author who studied how writers survived the Great Depression in his recent book, “Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America.” Yesterday, we interviewed Taylor on the Morning Media Menu, and he looked back at this historic government program that employed hundreds of writers during the 1930s.

Click here to watch the documentary trailer. Here’s more about the documentary: “‘Soul Of A People’ will be the subject of a series of organized exhibits, lectures and panels at over thirty libraries throughout the United States. Each library will work with a local scholar of the era to help present and plan and promote these programs. These exhibits will continue through the Fall of 2009 and are sponsored by the American Library Association and supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.”