Ocean State Libraries

"Between 1935 and 1939, the United States government paid out-of-work artists to write, act, and stage theatre as part of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a New Deal job relief program. In segregated 'Negro Units' set up under the FTP, African American artists took on theatre work usually reserved for whites, staged black versions of 'white' classics, and developed radical new dramas. In this fresh history of the FTP Negro Units, Kate Dossett examines...

"'Enough to live on: the arts of the WPA' celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Art Project, and highlights artwork, music, writing, and acting, all created under the various New Deal initiatives that put creative Americans on the federal payroll and back to work as a part of our nation's recovery from the effects of the great crash of October 1929. Featuring more than 70 works of art from this period,...