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Guide to the Works Progress Administration Collection on Orange County, California, 1935-1939
MS-R010
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Title: Works Progress Administration Collection on Orange County, California,
Date (inclusive): 1935-1939
Collection number: MS-R010
Creator:
Works Progress Administration
Extent:
Number of containers: 15 document boxes, 3 record cartons and 1 oversize folder
Linear feet: 15.75
Linear feet: 15.75
Repository:
University of California, Irvine. Library. Special Collections and Archives.
Irvine, California 92623-9557
Abstract: The collection is comprised of reports from the historical and anthropological projects
completed by the Works Progress Administration in Orange County, California from 1935 to
1939. The projects' reports reveal factual information on local history and
anthropological research on Native Americans. Most reports are original or first carbon
typescripts; they are illustrated with original photographs and sketches.
Language:
English.
Collection is open for research
Property rights reside with Rancho Santiago College. Literary rights are retained by the
creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish,
please contact the Head of Special Collections and University Archives.
Works Progress Administration Collection on Orange County, California. MS-R 10.
Special Collections and Archives, The UCI Libraries, Irvine, California.
Placed on permanent deposit by Rancho Santiago College in 1989.
Processed by Laura Clark Brown in 1997.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in
1935 as a part of his New Deal to curtail the Depression's effects on the United States.
The WPA attempted to provide the unemployed with jobs that allowed individuals to
preserve skills or talents.
The Federal Writers' Project (FWP), one branch of the WPA, provided work for over 6,600
unemployed writers, journalists, editors and researchers throughout the United States.
Directed by Henry G. Alsberg in Washington, the FWP concentrated its efforts on the
American Guide Series, comprised of travel guides for every state and for
numerous municipalities and regions. The guides contained material on regional and state
history, architecture, geography and commerce. Other FWP writers worked on smaller local
projects, including ethnic studies, folklore collections, nature studies and local
history.
California's FWP produced
California: A Guide to the Golden State, as well
as guides to San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey and Death
Valley. In Orange County, the FWP created "A History of Orange County, California"
(1936). Less than fifty years old at the time, Orange County had many living early
settlers who contributed information to the historical compilation.
The WPA in Orange County also employed anthropologists and archeologists who excavated
several sites and compiled reports and lists of artifacts related primarily to Native
Americans in the region.
When the United States entered World War II, the Depression and with it the New Deal came
to an end. The new war economy resulted in low unemployment and eliminated the time and
money formerly available for the types of projects undertaken by the WPA.
The collection is comprised of reports from the Historical and Anthropological projects
completed by the Works Progress Administration in Orange County, California from 1935 to
1939. The projects' reports reveal factual information on local history and
anthropological research on Native Americans. Most reports are original or first carbon
typescripts; they illustrated with original photographs and sketches.
The collection is organized into three series: History of Orange County, Anthropological
Project, and Duplicate Originals and Photocopies. Original reports are in the first two
series, and duplicates and copies of these originals are in the third series.
The "History of Orange County, California" project attempted to document local history
from 1769 to 1889 and emphasized the era before the County was formally established in
1889. The WPA produced 27 volumes of reports on such topics as historic adobe buildings,
architecture, agriculture, water supply, irrigation, natural resources, commerce,
transportation, cities and towns, government, notable lawsuits, education, religion,
sports and recreation, biography, and the partition of Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana (the
Spanish land grant that now contains the communities of Orange, Villa Park, Santa Ana,
Tustin, Costa Mesa, and part of Newport Beach). Many historical reports were based on
secondary sources, but some writers used primary sources as well.
An indexed guide to the reports has been cataloged (SpCol Ref. F868.O8 U551936) and is
available in Special Collections. The arrangement of the reports within the series is
based on the index, which is a rough alphabetical order by title. The detailed index
should be used together with this guide to navigate through the collection.
The Anthropology project consists of 23 volumes of reports on excavations of Orange
County archaeological sites; it includes lists and sketches of artifacts and photographs
of the excavations. It concludes with a summary monograph,
A Study of Primitive
Man in Orange County and Its Coastal Areas,
by Gladys E. Ashby and John W.
Winterbourne. The anthropological reports are organized into two subseries: Excavation
Reports and Artifacts and Native Americans.