Five highlights from Scott Borchert's book: "Republic of Detours: How The New Deal Paid Broke Writers To Rediscover America"

 
Above: Scott Borchert, Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers To Rediscover America, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021. Image scan from personal copy.

A book about downtrodden writers

I recently finished Scott Borchert's book, Republic of Detours, about the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the WPA. It's clear that a great amount of research went into this book, and Borchert's style of writing is very swift and smooth - making the 300+ page book move quicker than expected. He covers the beginnings of the FWP and the background of its director, Henry Alsberg; four of its most prominent writers (as well as briefer notes on other writers); and the demise of the FWP.

Here are five highlights from the book that I found particularly interesting:

1. The Guidebooks: What, exactly, are they??

Early on, Borcherts describes the FWP's most prominent set of projects - the state and other various guidebooks: "These books sprawled. They hoarded and gossiped and sat you down for a lecture [this is a great example, by the way, of Borchert's swift and smooth writing]. They seemed to address multiple readers at once from multiple perspectives. They ran to hundreds of pages. They contained a melange of essays, historical tidbits, folklore, anecdotes, photographs, and social analysis - along with an abundance of driving directions thickened by tall tales, strange sites, and bygone characters... they were rich and weird and frustrating" (p. 4).  

This is interesting because I too have found the guidebooks to be both fascinating and frustrating. I have wondered whether I should read them straight through, or just have them on hand as reference books? - like a set of encyclopedias, where I flip to the appropriate sections as needed.

Perhaps, in modern times, the guidebooks are whatever you want them to be - straight-through reads, reference items, collector's items, artworks to display (if you have the original dust jacket!), or a cherished symbol of a bygone government that was of, by, and for the people.

2. Permanent guidebook projects?

On p. 53, we learn that "George Cronyn [a high-ranking FWP administrator] wrote to Jacob Baker and another WPA official: 'There is no escaping the conclusion that [guidebooks] will be a permanent government function, similar in certain respects to the census. It will be one of the most important perpetual sources of information the government can offer.'"

Of course, like so many other New Deal programs, permanency would not be the outcome. After the New Deal and after the war, the progressive policy baton was usually dropped by the subsequent generations. And after 1980, the "greed is good" ethos took complete control. Who needs guidebooks for the people, after all, when you can buy a private island, build a luxury doomsday bunker, or have your own intergalactic space cruiser to escape the lowly masses?

Fortunately, Social Security, FDIC, and some other programs are still with us... for now. (And of course, plenty of art and infrastructure too.) But the ethos that made the FWP possible? Nope, that's gone. Sorry, Mr. Cronyn. 

3. How did the writers remember the FWP?

One of the most fascinating aspects of Borchert's book is his occasional documentation of how FWP veterans remembered the FWP. Zora Neale Hurston, for example, was not a fan of the FWP (nor of the New Deal generally). Studs Terkel, on the other hand, remembered it fondly and said, "I was lucky to be alive at that moment." Borchert points out that Terkel saw the FWP as a sort of savior from "a secure but deadening life as a lawyer." (Both quotes, p. 145).

4. New Deal racial dynamics

On pp. 172-174, Borchert describes the complicated racial dynamics of the New Deal. When I started reading this section, I thought, "Oh boy, here we go, another imbalanced assessment of the New Deal." But I was happily wrong. Borchert does a masterful job of explaining both the positive and negatives, and concludes, "In other words, it was complicated."

Thank you!

Indeed, Borchert's brief description of the relationship between the New Deal and race is one of the best I've read in a work that is not primarily about racial politics and policy.

5. The wonderfully cantankerous Harold Ickes

One part of Borchert's book made me laugh out loud (which is kind of weird when you're in a room by yourself, right?). He writes that Harold Ickes--FDR's Secretary of the Interior, and also head of the Public Works Administration--was not a fan of Martin Dies and his committee on un-American activities (a committee which ended up being more of an anti-New Deal crusade); and Ickes wrote of Dies: "For his unmitigated gall, for his long-winded yammerings that seemingly go 'babbling' on forever, and for the strange power that he appears to have over Congress, I christen him 'Bubble Dancer' Dies who cavorts lumberingly on the Congressional stage with nothing but a toy balloon with which to hide his intellectual nudity" (p. 255).

See, this is why New Deal aficionados LOVE Harold Ickes. His irascibility, coupled with Harry Hopkins' irreverence, alone make the New Deal a wonderful thing.

Republic of Detours is a well-written, thoroughly-researched, and informative book. And it may just inspire you to take a closer look at that state guide book sitting on your shelf.