Grace McCune was born in November 29, 1899 to the parents of Daniel J. McCune and Gertrud McCune. As far as her social security number shows, she was born in New Jersey. She lived with her parents and grandfather John McCune. It seems that her mother died fairly early on in her life since she does no appear in the city directories past the year of 1925. She lived with her father who was an Athens Police officer and her grandfather who was a plumber and later became a sales clerk for a grocery store. The house she grew up in. 881 1/2 College Avenue, was owned by her parents, which means that they must have fairly well off during a time of economic upheaval. She would have been considered the daughter in a middle class family. After her father's death in August of 1926, she began to move around a great deal, as well as change jobs on a regular basis. The combination of her father's death and the depression had a profound effect on her economic situation. She had a whole array of jobs ranging from a sales clerk to a laundress. She began working for the Federal Writer's Project in 1938. Her first assignment must have been the Slave Narrative Collection because her interview with Mirriam McCommons falls at the beginning of that year. She continued to work for the WPA even after her interviews with the free blacks. 1930's Race relation in the American South: Relationship of Grace McCune and Mirriam McCommons / Jennifer Briggs http://mgagnon.myweb.uga.edu (Retrieved March 5, 2009)
The Federal Works Project was a program established in the United States in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of the New Deal struggle against the Great Depression. It provided jobs for unemployed writers, editors, and research workers. Directed by Henry G. Alsberg, it operated in all states and at one time employed 6,600 men and women. The American Guide series, the project's most important achievement, included guides for every state and territory (except Hawaii), as well as for Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Philadelphia; for several major highways (U.S. 1, Ocean Highway, Oregon Trail); and for scores of towns, villages, and counties. The state guides, encyclopaedic in scope, combined travel information with essays on geography, architecture, history, and commerce. The project also produced ethnic studies, folklore collections, local histories, nature studies - a total of more than 1,000 books and pamphlets. Encyclopedia Britannica Online http://www.britannica.com (Retrieved March 5, 2009)
From the description of Grace McCune papers, 1938-1939. (University of Georgia). WorldCat record id: 312463631
