History - Zora Neale Hurston, the WPA and the Cross City Turpentine Camp

Zora Neale Hurston began working for the Florida division of the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in Florida in May of 1938. She signed on for the position of "Junior Interviewer" with the Federal Writers' Project (FWP). At the time, Hurston had already published Jonah's Gourd Vine and Mules and Men and was the only widely published author on the Florida payroll. Working out of her Eatonville home, she finished her fifth novel, Moses: Man of the Mountain, while making numberous folklife collecting trips across Florida. Hurston never mentioned her work with the FWP in her autobiography, perhaps because of the stigma associated with the WPA's relief programs.

In 1939, Hurston went to Cross City, Florida to interview workers of the Aycock and Lindsay turpentine camp. Material from her essay "Turpentine" later appeared in her book Seraph on the Suwanee.

Turpentine camps were isolated and known for their terrible and abusive working conditions. It was unusual for a writer to be allowed in to gather information. Hurston's essay is one of the few written, first-hand accounts of the lives of turpentine workers. Although Hurston was aware of and made notes concerning some of the abuses that occurred in the camp, this essay focuses on the workday.

From 1937 to 1942, Stetson Kennedy headed the Florida Writers' Project unit on folklore, oral history, and social-ethnic studies. Kennedy and Hurston worked together to capture the traditions, songs, tales, and anecdotes of the people of Florida. Kennedy's introduction to A Reference Guide to the Florida Foklore from the Federal WPA includes the story of the trip that he and Hurston took to the Cross City turpentine camp. His introduction mentions the essay she wrote and helps to put the piece in context.

(For a more thorough description of Hurston's work with the WPA, see Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writer's Project. Edited and with a biographical essay by Pamela Bordelon.)