New Deal Bird Art (9/10): "Birds of the World"

Above: A WPA poster, promoting the WPA book, Birds of the World (1938). Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

 

Above: Birds of the World has many photographs - like this eagle, photographed at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., by Ralph De Sola, editor of the WPA's Federal Writers' Project in New York City. De Sola was a bit of a strange character. It seems he was born in 1908 (and died around 1993), attended Columbia and Swarthmore colleges in the mid-to-late 1920s, and "ran a zoological garden in Florida, but the depression broke him" ("Washington," Eau Claire Leader (Eau Claire, Wisconsin), May 12, 1939). He had been a member of the Communist Party, but left around 1937 and became an anti-communist finger-pointer. In 1950 he was involved in the highly publicized senate confirmation hearings of Anna Rosenberg. He joined with Senator Joe McCarthy and prominent anti-Semitic figures in falsely casting Rosenberg as a communist. Their efforts failed and she became Assistant Secretary of Defense (see, e.g., "'Great Conspiracy' Failed in Objective," News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), January 5, 1951; and also Stuart Svonkin, Jews Against Prejudice, Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 119). An ex-wife of De Sola had also testified at the hearings, and painted her former husband as an "unstable, frustrated writer who resented the fact that he had to earn his living in jobs he considered demeaning, a man who could persuade himself to believe passionately in that which he wanted--or needed--to believe in" (Stephen E. Atkins, Encyclopedia of Right-Wing Extremism in Modern American History, ABC-CLIO, 2011, p. 125). Well, if nothing else, at least De Sola got Birds of the World right! Photo from Birds of the World, Chicago: Albert Whitman & Co., 1949 edition, used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Above: Another De Sola photo. In addition to lots of photographs, Birds of the World is full of interesting information (some of which is probably dated of course). Photo from Birds of the World, Chicago: Albert Whitman & Co., 1949 edition, used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Above: The WPA's Federal Art Project provided illustrations for Birds of the World, like this Hummingbird. Image from Birds of the World, Chicago: Albert Whitman & Co., 1949 edition, used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

"Birds of the World is one of the publications written by members of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration... Many books and brochures are being written... As they appear in increasing numbers we hope that the public will come to appreciate more fully not only the unusual scope of this undertaking, but also the devotion shown by the workers - from the humblest field worker to the most accomplished editor..."

--Harry Hopkins, head of the WPA, 1938, in foreword to Birds of the World