This NEH Summer Institute on the New Deal Era's Federal Writers' Project aims to foster dialogue about its mission, politics, and legacy even as calls resound for a 21st century FWP for artists and writers in the wake of the global pandemic. There is no better time to find out about the 1930s project and its place in American culture and history.

Library of Congress Speakers:

• Melissa Lindberg, Librarian, Prints and Photographs Division

• Guha Shankar, Senior Folklife Specialist, American Folklife Center

• Barbara Bair, Historian, Manuscript Division

To be joined in a conversation, moderated by Betsy Bowen, Reading Slavery, Writing Freedom, with:

• Jerrold Hirsch, Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers' Project

• Stephanie Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

• Brian Dolinar, ed., The Negro In Illinois: The WPA Papers

Register for this free virtual event here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-federal-writers-project-and-the-legacy-of-freedom-tickets-161395639703