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Above is
a compilation of all of the known Zora Neale Hurston sound recordings*
created while she worked for the WPA in the 1930s. Today, the original
recordings are housed at the Library
of Congress. Hurston worked for the WPA in 1935 and again in 1939.
Today, Hurston
is better known as a major literary figure, but she was also a trained
anthropologist, including studying under Franz Boaz. A native of Eatonville,
Florida, Hurston fell upon hard times during the Great Depression and
eventually sought out relief work with the Federal Writer’s Project (FWP).
Having already conducted fieldwork for her own studies, Hurston worked
with Herbert Halpert and Stetson Kennedy in the FWP. Her work on Florida’s
turpentine camps is still considered authoritative. For more on Hurston
and her fieldwork, go to the Florida Memory Project: http://www.floridamemory.com/OnlineClassroom/zora_hurston/
The Works
Progress Administration (WPA) – after 1939, the Works Projects Administration
– was a work-relief program created in 1935 by the President Franklin
Roosevelt’s Administration that had employed over 8.5 million people by
its demise in 1943. One of its programs was the Federal Writers Project
(FWP), which included a Folklore Section. This section conducted fieldwork,
recording songs, traditions, and stories across the nation. Originally
created to gather material for the American Guide Series, later emphasis
was placed upon fieldwork for the preservation of folk traditions for
future generations.
In Florida,
the FWP was based out of Jacksonville, and directed by historian Carita
Doggett Corse. Folklorist Stetson Kennedy directed the Florida Folklife
section. Seven fieldwork recording expeditions were conducted in Florida.
Two were conducted between 1935 and 1937, before the creation of the Florida
Folklore Section: one by Alan Lomax and Zora Neale Hurston, and the other
by John and Ruby Lomax. After 1939, five more were conducted by Florida’s
FWP staff: Kennedy, Hurston, Robert Cook, Alton Morris, Corse, Robert
Cornwell, John Filareton, and Herbert Halpert (of the Joint Committee
on Folk Art’s Southern Recording Expedition.)
Recording
equipment was loaned to Florida’s WPA program by the Library of Congress’
Archive of the American Folk Song (later the American Folklife Center).
The field recordings were made on acetate disks, usually recorded at 78
rpm (although occasionally at 33 rpm). Because these disks were shipped
from Washington DC to Florida, then to the recording site, and then back
to Washington, they often were not of the highest sonic quality. Several
had surface scratches and many had various recording speeds. In 1986,
the Florida Folklife Program staff made copies of many of these recordings
onto reel to reels for inclusion in the Florida Folklife Archive.
Many of these
recordings are also available online at the Library of Congress’ American
Memrory Project at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpahome.html
*With one
exception. The track “Uncle Bud” was not included on this page due to
subject matter and mature language
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