Review
18 members reviewed State by State
, all of them rating it 4 or 5 stars! It's clear this one is a winner, and reader Darra W. tells us why:
E Pluribus Unum...and How!
If you've ever wondered about the 21st-century relevance of our national motto - Out of Many, One - wonder no more. This fascinating collection of 50 essays, one per state, each penned by a different writer, is a tour de force of letters and lore, affirming both the rugged individuality and the common threads that personify the American Experience. Each narrative opens with a mini-almanac of state facts; the compendium is enhanced with appendices of relevant tables and a signature of photos, the latter provided by the individual authors.
The essays are eclectic in content and style. The iconic Merritt Parkway surfaces as central metaphor in the mini-memoir penned by...
Beyond the Book
The WPA's American Guide Series
State by State was inspired by the American Guide Series, a project that grew out of The Federal Writers Program (FWP). FWP was established in 1935 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal agency created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The FWP employed over 6000 Depression-era writers, editors, historians, researchers, art critics, archaeologists, geologists and cartographers. They collected folklore, slave narratives, and other oral histories, committing much of America's intangible history to paper. Thousands of writers worked on the project, making about $80 a month, working 20 to 30 hours a...
