In 1939, Alsberg was fired, federal funding was cut, and the project fell under state sponsorship led by John D. Newsom.

[1] The project was intended not only to provide work relief for unemployed writers, but also to create a unique "self-portrait of America" through publication of histories and guidebooks.

The format was generally uniform: each guide included detailed histories of the state or territory, with descriptions of every city and town, automobile travel routes, photographs, maps, and chapters on natural resources, culture, and geography.

[3] Others, such as Cape Cod Pilot, written by author Josef Berger using the pseudonym Jeremiah Digges, received critical acclaim.

[3] In each state, a Writers' Project non-relief staff of editors was formed, along with a much larger group of field workers drawn from local unemployment rolls.

Other programs that emerged from Alsberg's desire to create an inclusive "self-portrait of America" were the Life History and Folklore projects.

These consisted of first-person narratives and interviews (collected and conducted by FWP workers), which represented people of various ethnicities, regions, and occupations.

According to the Library of Congress website, American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1940, the documents "chronicle vivid life stories of Americans who lived at the turn of the century and include tales of meeting Billy the Kid, surviving the 1871 Chicago fire, pioneer journeys out West, grueling factory work, and the immigrant experience.

[9] The Chicago project employed Arna Bontemps, an established voice of the Harlem Renaissance, and helped to launch the literary careers of African-American writers such as Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Katherine Dunham, and Frank Yerby.

Years after her death, her unpublished works from this time were compiled in Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers' Project (1999).

Writers in each state were tasked with gathering information about foods and food-related events unique to their area, and preparing essays about these.

[citation needed] The most poisonous attacks against the FWP came from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and its chair, Congressman Martin Dies Jr. of Texas.

"[1] Accusations that communist activities were carried out openly, and that Soviets funded labor unions, which took control of the arts' projects, were found to be false.

He continued to work past his firing date in order to meet contractual arrangements with the publishers of three upcoming American Guide books.

[16] In the 1937 musical The Cradle Will Rock, funded by the Federal Theater Project, composer Marc Blitzstein incorporated some of opponents' efforts to prevent this production.

A companion book was published by Wiley & Sons as Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America.

[17][18] In May 2021, on the anniversary of the original project, Congressman Ted Lieu and Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez introduced legislation to create a new FWP, to be administered by the Department of Labor, that would hire unemployed and underemployed writers.