Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2013/Spring/Carl Stokes

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Federal Writers' Project in North Carolina

Overview:

Carl Stokes was a postal worker from Ferguson, North Carolina interviewed with the Federal Writers’ Project. He was an accomplished musician as a child, but gave up this passion in order to pursue an economically sustainable career. He was married with 4 children during thcte time of the interview in 1938.

Biography:

Early Life

Carl Stokes was a rural postal worker from Ferguson, North Carolina. He grew up attending a field school in Ferguson, and was somewhat popular in his youth. Making and playing instruments occupied most of his time. His “special pet instrument” was the French harp however he was also very skilled at playing the banjo. He gave up this passion due to economy of the Great Depression in order to pursue a career that would provide a decent income. Carl stated this was the biggest regret of his life.

Career and Family

Originally starting out owning his own business, he worked in merchandising for eight years, but due to everything being on credit, his business folded. After this, he switched careers to one in the postal service in order to have a decent paying salary. Carl had been in the postal service career for more than thirty years and traveled more than 50,000 miles in his time. Carl eventually married his childhood sweetheart, Edna Hoover, of which she was ten years his junior. The couple had four children, each of them being very musically gifted as he was. While at work, Carl’s children and wife maintained the household, but once the youth had all came to age, the work was left to Edna. This left Carl with a dilemma of quitting his job to help his wife, but he was unable to do so because of the economy and the necessity of having a job.

Religion and Push for Education

Carl was not a very religious man, stating that he cussed much too often and did not pray enough. However according to Mr. Stokes, Edna was very religious and provided a nice balance to his lack of practice. Aside from his personal life, Carl was very involved with the push for a better education system. This was due to the lack of availability of higher education, along with Carl never receiving a college degree. Carl was involved locally, as well as regionally and at the state level.

Social Issues

Decline in Musicianship during the Great Depression

The Great Depression took a toll on musicians in the United States, and the arts as a whole. The music from the era barely survived and according to Mark Humphrey, ”We are lucky to have much of it, given the economic devastation on the recording industry,”. Record sales had declined from 100 million sold a year in the mid-20s, to roughly just 6 million per year. Like Carl Stokes, the lack of income caused many musicians to pursue other career options. Radio stations were another big support for musicians during the 20s, but due to the economy they were forced to stop paying the musicians. Radio continued, but it came from those musicians who lived nomadically and didn’t mind the lack of pay.

Lack of Education in the Rural South during the Great Depression

Education was one of the main drawbacks to living in the South during the times of the Great Depression. Until the ending of World War II, private foundations were the main donators to education rather than the federal government.Most children obtained little education in a local field school, but usually had to quit early in order to help their family financially. Secondary education was a rarity as according to Stokes, “only the truly dedicated were able to make it to college,”. This is the reasoning behind why most people during this time period had to pursue manual labor jobs, or had to give up their passions like Stokes in order to support themselves financially.

Issues of Historical Production/Federal Writers' Project

The goal of the Federal Writers’ Project was to document and celebrate cultural and ethnic diversity throughout the United States. It was a part of the New Deal program to give jobs to journalists in order to achieve this goal and “peer into the heart and soul of the folk of the South,”. The authors of the stories used specific writing styles to help encompass these differences and give the reader a better understanding of the various cultures throughout the country. These authors tended to use writing styles that exaggerated certain aspects of the individual being interviewed. In the case of Carl Stokes, the interviewer made sure to include the dialect and grammatical errors Stokes used in his speech. This is compared to the proper grammatical structure used otherwise by the author throughout the article. Having this in place altered the general public’s perception of individuals in the South by making them seem uneducated.