WPA - Federal Writers Project; American Guide Series

The Berkshire Hills [Massachusetts]

New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1939. Photography by Edmund F. Hawes. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. Sponsored by the Berkshire Hills Conference

Green Cloth with lettering stamped in gilt; 8vo; 8.25 inches tall; xiv, 368 pages with an index; 31 photo illustrations throughout the text. With 27 maps in-text, small folding map tipped inside the rear endpages.

The bindings are tight and square. Text clean, light even age-toning. Moderate shelf handling wear with minor are-fading on the spine, modest darkening on the perimeter of the endpages; gift inscription on the front free endpage.

The Mylar protected dust jacket has the price of $2.50 with minor loss at the extremities and some small abraded spots on the spine.

Arrangement differs from standard American Guide Books with chapters arranged by community with local history and tours included within. Berkshire Sports: Summer and Winter have their own chapters.

Background Information:
During the Great Depression of the 1930s thousands of writers were hired by the Works Project Administration to create hundreds of guidebooks on all of the states in the U.S. These volumes that were produced became known as the American Guide Series. This series has been described as the biggest, fastest and most original research job in the history of the world.

Ref: Scharf & Schoyer, #261;  Hunter, 20

Item #19177

Price: $225.00