Description: In January and February of 1937, weeks of heavy rainfall caused the Ohio River to flood parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky, causing $500 million in property damages, and displacing and killing hundreds. By the end of January, the Ohio River measured 80 feet deep in Cincinnati, one of the areas most affected. This photograph is taken from the private bridge of the Wheeling Steel Corp. in Steubenville, Ohio, looking north. At the center are slag piles, and Fort Steuben Bridge is in the distance. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dispatched thousands of relief workers from the Works Progress Administration to rescue flood victims and restore affected cities.
In 1935, President Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939.
View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B08F06_017_001
Subjects: Wheeling Steel Corporation; Suspension bridges--Ohio; Ohio River; Floods; Natural disasters; Works Progress Administration; Ohio Federal Writers' Project
Places: Steubenville (Ohio); Jefferson County (Ohio)