New Deal, New Readers: Reading Panic, Public Policy and Literacy during the Great Depression

FAIN: FT-54617-06

Catherine Turner
University of Pennsylvania (Dallas, PA 18612-1090)

I will use the NEH Summer Stipend to work in the archives of the New Deal at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland. While there I plan to complete two chapters of my book-length manuscript about the relationship between public policy, citizenship, and reading during the Great Depression. The first chapter, “‘Where Ideal Avenue Meets Practical Street’: Bookselling Under the National Industrial Recovery Administration (NIRA),” describes the development of the Code of Fair Practice for the Book Publishing Industry. The second chapter, “The ABC of the CCC,” concerns reading groups, educational plans, and literacy training in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).