A Guide to New Deal Records

Bienes Center for the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

• WPA Collection
  Materials gathered by the Broward County Library about the WPA activities in Florida.
• CCC: The New Deal’s Depression-Era’s Ecological Movement
  An online collection of CCC-related documents, publications, and links to relevant websites.
• Education by Design: WPA Museum Extension Project
  An online exhibit of visual educational aids from the  known museum extension project (MEP), a little known section of the WPA.

P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

• Charles O. Andrews, 1936-1946
  Legislative papers of New Deal Era U.S. Senator Andrews.
• Civilian Conservation Corps (U.S.). Records, 1934-1935
  Publications and newspapers of several Florida camps. 1 ln.ft.
• Robert Alexis Green Papers 1922-1944
  Educator, lawyer, and U.S. Representative from Florida (1925-1944). Personal, political, and legislative correspondence. Born in Lake Butler, Florida. Educated at the University of Florida; law degree, Yale University. Began law practice in Starke, Bradford County. 20 ln.ft.
• Joseph Edward Hendricks Papers, 1931-1948
  Legislative papers of Hendricks career as a U.S. Reprehensive, 1937-1949.
• Spessard Holland Papers, 1913-1972
  Holland was a state senator and Florida governor during the New Deal Era (he later served as a U.S. Senator.) These papers cover his legislative career. His gubernatorial papers can be found at the State Archives of Florida.
• Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Welaka Research & Education Center, 1933-1957
  The center was administered in the 1930s by several New Deal agencies. Includes reports, correspondence, and budgets.
• James Hardin Peterson Papers, 1929-1951
  Spanning Peterson’s nine terms, the collection topics includes the Great Depression, the New Deal agencies, World War II, neutrality and national defense, taxes, the citrus industry, the Everglades, and the Cross Florida Barge Canal.
• Nathan Mayo Papers, 1923-1959
  Farmer, businessman, state legislator, and public official of Florida. Papers relating to agriculture and politics in Florida during Mayo's service as Florida Commissioner of Agriculture (1923-1960). Commissioner, Marion County, 1913. Florida House of Representatives, 1921-1923. Commissioner of agriculture, 1923-1960. Gift of Mr. Mayo's son, Nat Mayo. 12 ln.ft.
• Claude Pepper Scrapbooks, 1936-1958
  Newspaper clippings relating to Claude Pepper, U.S. Senator from Florida (1936-1951) and representative from Florida (since 1963), in the period 1948-1952 and to his unsuccessful 1958 senatorial primary campaign against Spessard L. Holland. 1 ln.ft.
• Park Trammell Papers, 1916-1936
  Governor and U.S. Senator from Florida; b. Park Monroe Trammell. - Correspondence, newspaper clippings, and photos. 6 ln.ft.
• Thomas Alva Yon Papers, 1927-1933
  Merchant, salesman, and U.S. representative from Florida. Congressional correspondence. Born near Blountstown. Educated in Jackson County schools. Attended Lanier Business College, Macon, Georgia. U.S. House of Representatives, 1927-1933. U.S. Bureau of Commerce, 1933-1940. U.S. General Accounting Office, 1941-1949. 1 ln.ft.

CCC Oral Histories, Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

Oral Reichelt Oral History Program, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida

Includes several CCC and other New deal-related interviews.

National Archives, College Park, Maryland

This following is a listing of the Record Groups that contain New Deal information on Florida.

• RG 9 National Recovery Administration (NRA)
• RG 25 National Labor Relations Board
• RG 35 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
• RG 47 Social Security Administration
• RG 69 Works Progress Administration (WPA)
• RG 119 National Youth Administration (NYA)
• RG 135 Public Works Administration (PWA)
• RG 145 Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)
• RG 162 Federal Works Administration
• RG 187 National Resources Planning Board
• RG 221 Rural Electrification Administration
• RG 234 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)
• RG 258 Federal Crop Insurance Corporation

State Library of Florida, Tallahassee, Florida

The State Library, located directly above the State Archives of Florida in the R.A. Gray building, houses hundreds of typescripts on a wide variety of topics that were created by the Works Projects Administration through their Historical Records, Federal Writers, and State-wide Library programs. The Library also possesses hundreds of state documents and publications in their Florida Room, along with city directories, pamphlets, brochures and a substantial book collection.

Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Located in Washington, DC, the Library of Congress (LOC) houses many of the nation’s manuscript and photographic collections. Included are the papers of New Dealer Harold Ickes, an extensive photographic section, and the WPA folklife collections.

• American Memory Project
  • Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937-1942
    Created by Robert Cook, Herbert Halpert, Zora Neale Hurston, Stetson Kennedy, Alton Morris, and others in conjunction with the Florida Federal Writers' Project, the Florida Music Project, and the Joint Committee on Folk Arts of the Work Projects Administration this is multiformat ethnographic field collection documenting African-American, Arabic, Bahamian, British-American, Cuban, Greek, Italian, Minorcan, Seminole, and Slavic cultures throughout Florida.
  • American Life Histories: Manuscripts form the Federal Writers Project, 1936-1940
    Includes 2,900 life histories by more than 300 writers that were compiled and transcribed by the staff of the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936-1940.
  • America from the Great Depression to WWII: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945
    Over 164,000 images (including 1600 color images) created by the Federal government as part of its New Deal programs. Includes several images of Florida.
  • Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers Project, 1936-1938
    More than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves collected by the Federal Writers' Project of the WPA.
  • Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
  • Zora Neale Hurston Plays


• Archive of Folk Culture
• Zora Neale Hurston: Recordings, Manuscripts, Photographs, and Ephemera
  Hurston was a famed author who also worked for the Florida Writers Project.

Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

• Federal Writers Project Papers
  Includes some material on the FWP in Florida.
• Stetson Kennedy Papers, 1936-1978
  Kennedy worked for the Florida Writers Project.

Claude Pepper Center, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida

The Claude Pepper Library houses the papers, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, and memorabilia of the late Congressman Claude Pepper and his wife, Mildred Webster Pepper. In public life for more than forty years, the political career of Claude Pepper included 14 years (1936-1951) in the U.S. Senate, where Pepper was an active New Deal supporter. Containing over two million pages, the collection of papers includes his official correspondence, speeches, and legislative, committee, and campaign files. The Claude Peppers Library is open weekdays between 8am and 5pm, and is located on the first floor of the Pepper Center Building on the FSU campus in Tallahassee, Florida. For more information, got to http://www.lib.fsu.edu/pepper/ or call (850) 644-9305.

Florida Heritage Collection, (PALMM) State University System of Florida

An online searchable collection of historical records and publications, including materials from the New Deal Era.

Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York

No research project on the New Deal can be complete without a trip to the Roosevelt Presidential Library. Containing over 17 million pages of documents, the Library houses Roosevelt’s private and public papers, as well as those of Eleanor Roosevelt and other associates and colleagues. In addition, there are 150,000 photographs, 44,000 books, and thousands of feet of motion picture film. Conceived and built under President Roosevelt’s direction from 1939 to 1940 on sixteen acres of land, this was the nation’s first presidential library.

Listing of Florida CCC camps, National CCC Alumni Association, St. Louis, Missouri

James F. Justin Civilian Conservation Corps Online Museum

• CCC biographies [including several people from Florida]

Published and unpublished works

Banks, Ann, and Robert Carter. Survey of Federal Writers' Project Manuscript Holding in State Depositories. Foreword by Alan Brinkley. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1985.

Bauer, Ruthmary. “Sarasota: Hardship and Tourism in the 1930s,” Florida Historical Quarterly 76 (Fall 1997).

Biles, Roger.  The South and the New Deal (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1994). 

Bindas, Kenneth J. All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA's Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935-1939 Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995.

Blake, Emma. "Zora Neale Hurston: Anthropologist and Folklorist," Negro History Bulletin 29 (April 1966).

Boulard, Garry. “State of Emergency: Key West in the Great Depression," Florida Historical Quarterly 67 (October 1988).

Bordelon, Pamela G. "Mirror to America: the Federal Writers' Project's Florida Reflection," Ph.D. dissertation: Louisiana State University, 1991.

Brunson, Jeana. “Patterns of Community: Quiltmaking in Florida during the Depression Era,” Ph.D. dissertation: Florida State University, 1996. 

Bulger, Peggy A. "Stetson Kennedy: Applied Folklore and Cultural Advocacy," Ph.D. dissertation: University of Pennsylvania, 1992.

Bulger, Peggy A. "Stetson Kennedy: Folklore and the Struggle for Human Rights," The Folklore Historian 8 (1991)

Carlebach, Michael and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. Farm Security Administration Photographs of Florida Gainesville; University of Florida Press, 1993.

Cobb, James C. and Michael V. Namorato, eds. The New Deal and the South Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984.

Cox, Merlin G. “David Sholtz: New Deal Governor of Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly 43 (October 1964).

Dunn, William James.“The New Deal and Florida Politics,” Ph.D. dissertation: Florida State University, 1971.

Evans, Jon S. “Florida Politics in the Shade of War: The 1940 Governor's Race,” Master’s thesis: Florida State University, 2000.

Fagette, Paul. Digging for Dollars: American Archaeology and the New Deal Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995).  [Includes coverage of work done in Florida under the WPA.] 

Florida. State Planning Board. Parks, Parkways and Recreational Areas Study Tallahassee:  1939.

Flynt, J. Wayne.  Duncan Upshaw Fletcher, Dixie’s Reluctant Progressive Tallahassee: FSU Press,1971

Gannon, Michael, ed. The New History of Florida Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995.

Garner, Lori Ann. “Representations of Speech in the WPA Slaves Narratives of Florida
And the Writings of Zora Neale Hurston,” Western Folklore (Summer 2000).

Glassman, Steve, and Kathryn Lee Seidel, eds. Zora in Florida Orlando: University of Central Florida Press, 1991.

Green, Elna. Looking for the New Deal: Florida Women’s Letters During the Great
Depression Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007.

Henderson, Ann, and Stetson Kennedy. "The WPA Guide to Florida: A Conversation Between Ann Henderson and Stetson Kennedy," Florida Forum 9 (Fall 1986).

Hurston, Zora Neale. Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings New York: Library of America, 1995.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers' Project Edited and with a biographical essay by Pamela Bordelon. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

Huss, Veronica, and Evelyn Werner. "The Conchs of Riviera, Florida," Southern Folklore Quarterly 4 (September 1940): 141-51.

Kabat, Ric A.  “From New Deal to Red Scare: The Political Odyssey of Senator Claude D. Pepper,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Florida State University, 1995.

Kennedy, Stetson. "Way Down Upon . . . Gathering Tales of Folklife in Suwannee Country," FORUM 17 (Spring/Summer 1993).

Kennedy, Stetson. "The W.P.A. Florida Writers Project: A Personal View," FORUM 12 (Spring 1989).

Kersey, Harry A. “Florida Seminoles in the Depression and the New Deal, 1933-1942,” Florida Historical Quarterly 65 (October 1986).

Kersey, Harry A., Jr. The Florida Seminoles and the New Deal, 1933-1942 Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1989.

Leslie, Vernon. "The Great Depression in Miami Beach," Master’s thesis: Florida Atlantic University, 1980.

Linsin, Christopher. “Something More Than A Creed: Mary McLeod Bethune's Aim of Integrated Autonomy As Director of Negro Affairs,” Florida Historical Quarterly 76 (Summer 1997).

Long, Durwood. “Key West and the New Deal, 1934-1936,” Florida Historical Quarterly 46 (January 1968).

Lowry, Charles B. “The PWA in Tampa; A Case Study,” Florida Historical Quarterly 52 (April 1974).

Lyon, Edwin. New Deal for Southeastern Archaeology Tuscaloosa:  University of Alabama Press, 1996. 

McDonough, Gary W., ed. The Florida Negro: A Federal Writers' Project Legacy Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.

Mertz, Paul. New Deal Policy and Southern Rural Poverty Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.

Mormino, Gary. “Florida Slave Narratives,” Florida Historical Quarterly 66 (April 1988).

Nelson, Dave. “Relief and Recreation: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Florida Park Service, 1935-1942,” Master’s thesis: Florida State University, 2002.

Nelson, Dave. “ ‘Improving’ Paradise: The Civilian Conservation Corps and Environmental Change in Florida,” in Jack E. Davis ed. Paradise Lost? The Environmental History of Florida Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.

Nelson, Dave. “A New Deal for Relief: Governor Fred Cone and the Florida State Welfare Board,” Florida Historical Quarterly (October 2005).

Nelson, Dave. “Relief, Gender, and Youth at Camp Roosevelt: A Case Study of the NYA in Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly (October 2007)

Pearia, Alicia A. “Preserving the Past: Library Development in Florida and the New Deal, 1933-1942,” Masters Thesis: Florida State University, 2007.

Rogers, William W. “The Great Depression.” In The New History of Florida, edited by Michael Gannon, 304-322. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996.

Salmond, John A. The Civilian Conservation Corps. 1933 - 1942 Durham: Duke University Press, 1967.

Shappee, Nathan D. “Zangara’s Attempted Assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt,” Florida Historical Quarterly 37 (October 1958).

Shofner, Jerrell H. “Roosevelt’s ‘Tree Army’: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Florida” Florida Historical Quarterly 65 (April 1987).

Smith, Douglas L. The New Deal in the Urban South Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Smith, Larry Russell. “The New Deal and Higher Education in Florida, 1933-1939: Temporary and Tacit Promises,” Master’s thesis: University of Florida, 2004.

Snyder, Robert. “Marion Post and the Farm Security Administration in Florida,” Florida
Historical Quarterly 65 (April 1987).

Stoesen, Alexander R. “Claude Pepper and the Florida Canal Controversy, 1939-1943,” Florida Historical Quarterly 50 (January 1972).

Sullivan, John J. "The Civilian Conservation Corps an the Creation of Myakka River State Park," Tampa Bay History, 9 (Winter 1987).

Sweet, John F. "The Civilian Conservation Corps in Florida," Apalachee 6 (1967).

Tebeau, Charlton.  A History of Florida Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1971. [chapter 25 on Depression and New Deal]

Tidd, James Francis. “The Works Progress Administration in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, Florida, 1935 to 1943,” M.A. thesis, University of South Florida, 1989.
 
Walston, Kathleen Anne. "A Case for the Revival of the CCC in Florida," Master's thesis: University of Florida, 1986.
 
Wells, William James.  “Duncan Upshaw Fletcher, Florida’s Grand Old Man,” Master’s thesis, Stetson University, 1942.

Willey, Gordon R.  Archeology of the Florida Gulf Coast Gainesville:  UP of Florida, 1998. pp. 103-194.  [includes descriptions of government sponsored excavations along the Gulf Coast]

Works Project Administration. Federal Writers Project. Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State 1939. [Reissued, with a new introduction by John I. McCollum, as The WPA Guide to Florida: The Federal Writers' Project Guide to 1930s Florida. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.]