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Article: Nailing a freight on the fly: the federal writers' project in Nebraska.(Short Story)
- Article from:
- Prairie Schooner
- Article date:
- March 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 University of Nebraska Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I find Carol Ahlgren at her office near the Omaha jail and when we meet I can tell she understands my quest. On her desk lies her personal copy of Nebraska: Guide to the Cornhusker State. She says she has used it in travels throughout the state, as if it were the latest from Fodor's and not the Federal Writers' Project guide from 1939. Carol describes herself as a "New Deal junkie"; she admires the epic scale of the New Deal efforts that sent architects and writers and interviewers fanning out over the countryside to take the gauge of America, with eyes to where it could be better.
Carol grew up in Wisconsin, where she learned about FDR from her grandfather. "He ...