4/8/2008:
On this day, April 8, 1935, the United States Congress passed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. The act provided President Franklin Roosevelt with funding for several new government employment programs including the Works Progress Administration; a program that offered work building bridges, roads, public parks and airports. It also addressed the employment needs of non-construction workers. The Federal Writers’ Project was one of several projects within the WPA that targeted people with skills in the arts.
With automobile travel increasing nation-wide, the Federal Writers Project was given the task of creating “An American Guide Series”; tour guides to all 48 states and the territories of Alaska and Puerto Rico.
In North Dakota, the writer's project was sponsored by the State Historical Society of North Dakota and the post of state director was assigned to a news writer named Ethel Schlasinger. Only 20 years old and the youngest director in the nation, Schlasinger was responsible for some 60 men and women across the state who were set to the task of gathering information concerning local history and customs as well as points of interest.
To publish the guidebook, Ethel Schlasinger requested from the state legislature $2,000 with the understanding that the state would be reimbursed through book sales. Concerned that the state legislature would fail to grant the appropriation requested before they adjourned, Schlasinger battled the worst blizzard of the year to personally present her case.
Her efforts paid off as the legislature approved the appropriation bill. But when it reached Governor William Langer’s desk, he informed Schlasinger that no funds were available unless she could prove the books would sell. Project fieldworkers immediately began determining possible sales around the state. Once the report put expected sales in the thousands, Governor Langer signed the bill.
Schlasinger however believed the governor had other motivations. She later recalled, “He enjoyed needling me… Not signing the bill until the last possible moment was his way of telling me that I shouldn’t be a Democrat.”
“North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State” was published by Knight Printing in 1938. With details on ethic customs, documentation of local architecture and a Calendar of Annual Events, the guidebook provides modern North Dakotans with a unique window into the 1930’s. According to Governor Langer, who penned the book’s Foreword, it should serve to awaken “the consciousness of North Dakota people to the historical, sociological, and cultural heritage that is theirs.”
Written by Christina Sunwall
Sources:
Mangione, Jerre Gerlando. The dream and the deal: the Federal Writers' Project, 1935-1943 (Syracuse University Press; 1996)
Tweton, Jerome D. and Theodore B. Jellif. North Dakota: The Heritage of a People (Fargo: North Dakota Institute of Regional Studies, 1976)
The WPA Guide to 1930’s North Dakota (State Historical Society of North Dakota; 1990)