Federal Writers' Project Papers

CONTENT WARNING: Some of these texts contain offensive and racist language used by the creators of these documents.

W. T. Couch (1901), a white publisher and editor, was also a part-time official of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration, as assistant and associate director for North Carolina, 1936-1937, and as director for the southern region, 1938-1939. These papers include his correspondence relating to the project and narratives (called "life histories") of about 1,200 individuals, written by about 60 members of the project after one or more oral history interviews with the subjects. Persons interviewed, many of them African Americans, described life in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.