A MOMENT IN TIME
Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, 1930s |
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The WPA Tour Guide to 1930s Arkansas
Within the many programs of the New Deal, Roosevelt's response to the onset of the Great Depression, was a relief agency known as the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA built schools, post offices, hospitals, parks, and roads. The WPA employed people to not only construct dams, roads, bridges, and other public structures, but also to develop work projects for artists, writers, musicians, and actors. The Federal Writers Project-- one of the WPA projects-- was a product of one of the most ambitious research and writing undertakings in American history. The writers and photographers were hired to prepare state guidebooks that recorded the points of interest of numerous states.
Arkansas, one of the states that volunteered to participate, was divided into seventeen highway tours and seven city tours. Each tour focused upon a particular highway within the state, one of which was US 65, which runs through Pine Bluff.
When in Pine Bluff, the writers listened to hundreds of the town's inhabitants talk about the city and their lives. The writers of the project were interested in what the townspeople viewed as a "main attraction." With the information that was collected, the WPA writers wrote a book that is now entitled The WPA Tour Guide to 1930s Arkansas. Within the book was a section entitled "Points of Interest." This section consisted of sites that demonstrated either some type of history or a leading new business. The sites listed under the "Points of Interest" were chosen to imply historical, architectural, industrial, and demographic attributes of the city.
This website displays the sites that the federal writers selected as Pine Bluff's "points of interest." Also included are photographs of what the sites looked like at the time that the Tour Guide was published, as well as photos of what the sites look like today. As a native of Pine Bluff, I have also included some additional "points of interest" of my own.