The 1930s WPA's Guide to Alabama History

Published in 1940, The WPA Guide to 1930s Alabamawas one of a series that was commissioned by the Federal Works Project Administration as part of the New Deal. Local unemployed writers were put to work writing the history of their respective states. Myrtle Miles served as the first supervisor of the Alabama project starting in 1935, but she later butted heads with Marie Bankhead Owen, head of The Alabama Department of Archives and History. Bankhead Owen was the author of several historical books and probably saw the project as competition, according to an introduction by Harvey Jackson III, added to the book in a more recent printing.

Bankhead Owen gave a scathing review of the book's first draft and convinced then-Governor Bibb Graves to pull the state's support for it. Graves aligned himself with Bankhead Owen and disbanded the state commission that was sponsoring the project. This made Miles' job all but impossible. However, Miles carried forth her task under duress until she was eventually replaced in 1939. When Governor Frank Dixon was elected in 1940, Alabama restored support for the book with a new sponsoring commission.

The state's WPA Guide tells the history of 1930s Alabama, but it also reveals the attitudes of the times, as well as subtle racial prejudices. This aspect makes the Guide worth reading because it provides a mirror for the 1930s mindset of middle class white Alabamians--the sector from which most of the writers of the book belonged before writing for the WPA. For example, the book notes that "Hunting the 'possum, the only marsupial or pouched animal in North America, is a favorite sport among rural Negroes and whites." The tone implies that respectable middle and upper class whites did not partake in this activity. Often what is not said is as important as what is said as one reads this guide. In another example, chroniclers referred to the Civil War as the "War between the States", evoking the notion that the war was about states' rights, despite the fact that, as Harvey Jackson III says in his introduction, slave-owners were the primary leaders and backers of the states' rights movement in Alabama.

Incidentally, many of Bankhead Owen's books, such as History of Alabama for junior high schools and The Story of Alabama, a History of the State, are still available in places such as the Mobile Public Library. As an interesting side note, Marie Bankhead Owen was the aunt of actress Tallulah Bankhead and the sister of Congressman John H. Bankhead and Congressman and Speaker of the House, William Bankhead. She was also the first woman to run a statewide office in Alabama.

The WPA Guide to 1930s Alabama is available as eContent from many public libraries and from major booksellers.