[Detail] Wayne Perry playing fiddle, Crowley, Louisiana.
The Role of Government in Promoting Art, 1929-1945
The Library of Congress's role in the collection and preservation of folk songs in the 1930s is just one example of the government's increased promotion of the arts during the Depression Era. See an excerpt from the Annual Report of the Archive of American Folk Song to learn more about the Library's role and its cooperation with other government agencies, including the Writers' Project, the Folk Arts Committee, the Music Project, and Recreation Project of the WPA. The biography of John Lomax also speaks to the importance of the WPA in making this collection possible through contacts such as Ruby Pickens Tartt and Genevieve Chandler.
