This image is the cover for the book First-Person America

First-Person America

Between 1938 and 1942 the Federal Writers’ Project set out to create a first-person portrait of America by sending young writers—many of whom later became famous—around the country to interview people from all occupations and backgrounds. This book presents 80 of these diverse life histories, including the stories of a North Carolina patent-medicine pitchman, a retired Oregon prospector, a Bahamian midwife from Florida, a Key West smuggler, recent immigrants to New York, and Chicago jazz musicians. Historian Eric Foner called First-Person America “the finest example yet of an increasingly important genre of oral history.”

Ann Banks

Ann Banks is a journalist and writer living in New York. She has written for many publications, including New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, The Nation, and USA Today. A selection of her essays may be found at annbanks.com. She edited an anthology of oral histories from the Federal Writers Project, First-Person America, and co-produced a radio series for National Public Radio on the same subject; work on the book was supported by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Pickett Press c/o Authors Guild Digital Services