WPA Writers’ Program — American Guide Series2.0

Idaho’s contribution to the American Guide Series, published in 1937 by The Caxton Printers of Caldwell as “Idaho: A Guide in Word and Picture,” appeared early enough in the Federal Writers’ Project’s history that it predates the three-part structure, general background, cities, then tours, that later volumes in the series would standardize. Copyright was held by Secretary of State Franklin Girard, who sponsored the book on the state’s behalf, and the volume carries a simple dedication: “To all Idahoans who helped to make it, this book is dedicated.”

The unsigned foreword is unusually candid about the difficulty of the undertaking, explaining that on subjects such as flora and fauna there was simply “little published information,” and what existed was often inaccurate, so the editors expected some statements to be challenged “by persons unaware that a good many of the traditional notions about Idaho are not supported by fact.” It singles out Harry Shellworth, Ben Oppenheim, Ansgar Johnson, and Dr. A. E. Weaver for special thanks, credits university faculty at Moscow and Pocatello with reviewing individual chapters and National Forest supervisors with their cooperation, and gives particular praise to photographer M. S. Benedict, whose skill illustrated the book throughout. The Pocatello material was written by business people of that city, the two essays on Idaho Indians were contributed by Ruth E. Lyon, and the maps were the work of F. M. Tarr.

Because it precedes the series’ standard template, the Idaho guide has no separate section profiling individual cities. Instead, Section I offers nine essays, an essay in Idaho history, two further essays on Idaho Indian history and anthropology, a survey of the state seen from the air, and accounts of flora, fauna, hunting and fishing, resources, and the state’s emergence from the frontier era. Section II opens with eleven numbered automobile tours before moving into territory unique among the early guides: chapters on the state’s primitive backcountry area, buried treasure legends, ghost towns, and frontier tall tales, closing with an essay on the origins of Idaho place names.

The foreword notes that an atlas and encyclopedia were expected to follow, addressing material the Guide had to omit for lack of space, but no evidence suggests that companion volume was ever completed, leaving this 1937 guide as the single most complete portrait of Idaho the Federal Writers’ Project produced. Printed and bound by Caxton itself in Caldwell, the volume predates by several years the more uniform house style, Hastings House or Oxford University Press imprints, brick-red and navy cover designs, that would come to define the series elsewhere, making it as much a period artifact of Depression-era Idaho printing as it is a guidebook.