Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration of Northern California.

Historical Background

Between 1936 and 1940, the California Department of Parks and Recreation in conjunction with the Federal Writers' Project, a component of the federal Works Progress Administration, produced a series of descriptive historical essays and monographs on a variety of the state's important landmarks, monuments and state parks.

The project editors were Clark Wing and Vernon Aubrey Neasham. Project writers included George Walcott Ames Jr., Christian Ecklon, Andrew Eggum, Russell C. Ewing, John Samuel Fox, Chester Lyle Gutherie, Esther Harlan, Oscar Houmann, John Adam Hussey, James C. Kean, Tyrrell Martinez, Don Morton, James Nebergall, Benjamin Rader, Engel Sluiter, George Tays, Kathleen Camilla Wade, H. Howe Wagner, and Lois Ann Woodward.

Through an agreement with the State Printing Office, the monographs were to be published and sold to the public for a nominal price. The historical landmarks selected for treatment included a variety of sites typifying California's "Spanish, Mexican and Early California" past. Many sites were privately owned and had been registered by the California State Chamber of Commerce as places having historical significance worthy of preservation. By 1940, 366 sites had been registered as landmarks.

The California Historic Landmarks Project also gathered information on the state's seventy parks. Like the essays written for the landmarks, the monographs on the parks provided the history of the sites, as well as physical descriptions of the park and auto route directions from major metropolitan areas. In large measure, these essays were intended to be guides for travelers to California's historic and notable sites.

From the guide to the California Historic Landmark Project Collection, 1936-1940, (University of California, San Diego. Geisel Library. Mandeville Special Collections Library.)