“Griswold’s ‘casting’ explanation of the Guides project is compelling and forceful. . . . American Guides interweaves empirical research and deft analysis, fact and creativity, and provides us a brand new way to see the United States.”

Los Angeles Review of Books

“American Guides offers a richly detailed, rigorous, and sophisticated account of cultural production in keeping with Griswold’s previous work. It will be of interest to sociologists generally and especially to sociologists of culture and scholars working on the history of the book, material culture, mobility, leisure, elites, regionalism, and nationalism.”

American Journal of Sociology

“Depression-era New Deal agencies are often forgotten by students, as well as by some historians. Sociologist Griswold, however, researched one agency of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers' Project that gave unemployed individuals work writing state guides for those who could take to the highways to tour some of the various states’ attractions. Recommended.”

Choice

“American Guides is a fascinating, wonderfully intricate tale of the politics of the New Deal, of the odd and interesting state of American authors and their organizations, of the people panicked at left-wing subversion, and much more. Throughout, Griswold brilliantly analyzes the casting of American culture and illuminates the major ways that cultural change happens—because of institutional imperatives with almost entirely unintended cultural effects.”

Elizabeth Long, Rice University

“An inspired book. Griswold ingeniously marshals the evidence and constructs a persuasive argument for the significance of the American Guides series. Along the way, she advances an intriguing sociological model of cultural production, placing new emphasis on the ad hoc and the accidental, and allowing for the unintentional invention of cultural ‘molds’ prior to the emergence of cultural and ideological content to fill them. American Guides will find readers across a range of disciplines, including sociology, literature, and U.S. history.”

James F. English, University of Pennsylvania

“In this superb study, Griswold examines one of the most fascinating cultural projects of the twentieth century—the American Guide books that emerged from the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s. In so doing, she lays bare the forces that shaped American culture and society at a decisive moment in American history. By ‘casting culture’ in ‘state-shaped molds,’ the guide books and their extraordinary authors redefined and invigorated American culture in lasting ways. As Griswold demonstrates so brilliantly, the writers and their guides captured the nation’s diversity in fresh ways and in so doing introduced Americans to their own country.”

Ellen Fitzpatrick, University of New Hampshire