Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota

The credited “author” is not a single person but the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota, a state branch of the nationwide Federal Writers’ Project. The program was launched in 1935 under the WPA to give work to unemployed writers, editors, researchers, librarians, and other white-collar workers during the Great Depression.

In North Dakota, these workers compiled North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State for the American Guide Series, with sponsorship from the State Historical Society of North Dakota. The book was published in 1938 and was designed as both a practical travel guide and a broad survey of the state’s history, culture, landscapes, and communities.

Like other Federal Writers’ Project books, the North Dakota guide was part public service, part cultural record. Rather than reflecting one authorial voice, it brings together the work of many contributors, which gives it a wide-angle view of the state and makes it valuable today as a snapshot of North Dakota in the Depression era.