“American cookery and the part it has played in the national life, as exemplified in the group meals that preserve not only traditional dishes, but also attitudes and customs.”
-excerpt from the original 1939 memo stating the goal of America Eats
During the Great Depression the federal government put thousands of artists to work including such notable painters as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. They sponsored many programs to get people in all fields working again, including writers. Near the end of the Depression, in 1939, Katherine Kellock of the Florida Writer’s Project proposed the idea of working on a documentation of American food culture with a strong “social and anthropological component.” This project was to be completed by writers across the country and then compiled into a single book that would serve as a written snapshot of American food culture at that moment.
By imposing very few constraints on the type of writing they were looking for, editors for America Eats received poems, short stories, and even some brief anecdotes with no byline. Several publishers including Houghton Mifflin were interested in publishing America Eats, and the deadline for the writers to send in their work to be included in the book was set for December 3, 1941. On December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor was attacked, and all focus was shifted to the war effort. Ultimately in February of 1943 the government body in charge of America Eats was shut down, and the project was never completed. The writings were boxed up and most were sent to the Library of Congress where they would sit undiscovered for another 50 years. When the boxes were finally unearthed by writer Mark Kurlansky the stacks of paper measured almost two feet high of un-edited, raw manuscript. The original idea was that the writings would be accompanied by line drawings, but in addition to the writings there were 26 photographs that were sent in (two of those original images are seen above).
Kurlansky went on to edit the manuscripts that he found and compile them into the book The Food of a Younger Land. It is a great read and includes his selections of the best stories from the project along with additional context and historical information to help guide the reader.
Another text that was made from this discovery is Pat Willard’s America Eats! In this book Willard has retraced the steps of some of the original authors and has taken her own journey across the country using the unpublished manuscript as her guide.
If you are interested in our project, these books provide the inspiring stories from which our adventure began. More info about the original project may also be heard on NPR by clicking here.
As America Eats was being packaged into boxes, Merle Colby, one of the editors who stayed on until the very end to make sure the materials were taken care of wrote in her final report…
“Here and there in America some talented boy or girl will stumble upon this material, take fire from it, and turn it to creative use.”
Katie and I have indeed caught fire and we hope that our visual exploration of this project makes Mrs. Colby and everyone who has ever worked on America Eats proud.
America Eats: Following Food to Find America 