The Federal Writers' Project and the Writers' Program: An Historical Survey and Preliminary Exploration Study of Their Sociological Implications

PurposesData concerning literature has not been commonly accepted as significant to social scientists interested in social organization and communication. No effective methods have been developed, for example, for the study of authorship as a reflection of social change or as an emerging profession.Of value in this regard is the study of recent occupational trends among American writers. The Federal Writers' Project and its successor, the Writers' Program, might be used, for example, as the point of origin for research designed to reveal the extent to which writing in the United States has become, since 1935, an increasingly professionalized occupation.