Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. During the height of the depression, Roosevelt’s New Deal is coming up with numerous ways to get people back to work, including the idea of hiring out of work writers in every state and for each state to write a guidebook, coordinated by the directors of the program in D.C. What follows is individual portraits of the overall project and how a few individual states put their books together and some of the wonderful writers who worked on them. (Zora Neale Hurston, Nelson Algren, Richard Wright) The book is richly researched and told in wonder and great humor as this seemingly impossible project somehow gets completed.

I received an electronic ARC of this book via NetGalley.

This is a well-written account of the Federal Writers' Project and the people who shaped it. It's certainly interesting and readable, but probably most enjoyable for a reader who already has a particular interest in the program.

It is certainly informative and worthwhile, though at times it is far more a biographical account of the people involved than the program itself.

Scott Borchert tells the story of the Federal Writers Project in Republic of Detours. It was an often chaotic and rag-tag program of employing out of work writers to produce these tome-like guidebooks for every American state and several territories.

I call it rag-tag and chaotic because as Borchert’s various profiles show: Yes, they would have some of the finest American writers of the day and in the history of the country, but for every one of those there were hacks, alcoholics, people with mental issues, etc. Add in several states’ directors feuding with Washington, several states cycling through directors in quick succession, and numerous deadline failures and chaos fits.

That being said, it was actually a very entertaining book to hear about how some of the directors dealt with labor shortages (Idaho), questions of how to approach the African American question (Florida), how did the project feel about Communist/socialistic voices (Illinois) (this was a moving target throughout the period) and the ultimate showdown between the Federal Writers Project and The House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

Republic of Detours is a very interesting book about a largely forgotten New Deal program that manages to ask relevant questions about the world we face today.

It was a roiling and seething experiment, and even its participants could not agree on what it all meant. ~from Republic of Detours by Scott Borchert



During the Depression, President Roosevelt's New Deal relief programs paid millions of people to work. White collar workers were also starving, including writers, editors, newspapermen, and college professors. The Federal Writers Project (FWP) was created to employ tens of thousands of writers across America; it is credited for preventing suicide rates among writers. The program not only printed over a thousand publications, it boosted the careers of the 20th c most iconic writers.

The FWP conceived of a series of American Guides, filled with a broad range of information, including geography, politics, history, folklore, and ethnographic and cultural studies. They were the ultimate travel guides, providing tours and destinations that were often known only to local people.

Author Scott Borchert's uncle had hundreds of the guides and he became curious to know who created them and why. "They carry a whiff of New Deal optimism," he writes, but they also managed to sidestep "those signature American habits of boosterism and aggressive national mythologizing." The Guides offer insight into how Americans saw themselves and their history.

Borchert uncovered how the massive program was rife with conflict and struggles. The state programs submitted articles to the D. C. editors. Conflicts arose. For instance, there was a backlash against the term Civil War by Southern states who wanted War Between the States.

Readers learn about the life, careers, and politics of the administrators and writers. In the 1930s, socialism was embraced by progressives, and many of the Guide writers were progressives who wrote about labor and attacked racial and economic inequity. Eventually, the program came under attack as a communist vehicle.

Tour One introduces Henry Alsberg, friend of Emma Goldman, selected to run the WPA in Washington DC. His first mission was to "take 3.5 million people off relief and put them to work." The quality of the work was unimportant. And yet, the largest publishing houses later testified to the quality of the guides.

Tour Two considers how the program worked in Idaho under Vardis Fisher who completed and published the first Guide. Tour Three takes us to Chicago where writers Nelson Algren, Studs Terkel, Frank Yerby, and Richard Wright were hired.

Tour Four goes to Florida where anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston joined a Negro Unit to write The Florida Negro. Tour Five goes to New York City, the most dysfunctional unit. Richard Wright left the FWP in Chicago, where he became friends with Margaret Walker, for New York City where he meet Ralph Ellison.

Tour Six returns to DC, the WPA attacked by Rep. Martin Dies, Jr., who contended that the organization was a stronghold of communists intending to create a propaganda outlet.

This is a broad ranging history of an era, the program, and the people who ran and worked in it, and its legacy. The Guides legacy includes inspiring authors John Steinbeck and William Least Heat-Moon.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through Net Galley. My review is fair and unbiased.