AMERICAN-MADE—ON SALE NOW

AMERICAN-MADE is the first single-volume history of one of our country's most significant and enduring initiatives: FDR's Works Progress Administration.

In a time of great need, this great initiative powered by great determination—and orchestrated by people of great heart—was launched as a part of Roosevelt's New Deal.

On October 29 1929, the stock market crashed. Within four years, fifteen million people—one quarter of the United States's adult workforce—were jobless. Thirty-six million family members who depended on them were equally destitute.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, he promised the country a "New Deal." And from this promise grew a presidential act creating the WPA, headed by the visionary Harry Hopkins and guided by his unstinting ethic.

Exhaustively researched, compellingly told, filled with enthralling period photographs, AMERICAN-MADE documents for the first time in one volume the complete story of this enduring, humane, and controversial program, one that forever changed the physical landscape and social politics of the United States.

Read a chapter | Listen to the author

VIEW OUR WPA TIMELINE

Explore a specially created interactive timeline that chronicles selected events, accomplishments, and milestones in the history of the WPA.
Click here to view the interactive timeline.

DOWNLOAD A DISCUSSION GUIDE

Whether you're looking to further explore the WPA in your community or are an educator in search of classroom materials, the custom-created discussion guide offers helpful guidance and suggestions.
Click here to download.

EXPLORE SELECTED RESOURCES AND LINKS

This site offers additional resources for anyone wanting to learn more about the WPA. In the Resources and Links sections are additional material and sources for further research.

PRAISE FOR AMERICAN-MADE

"Vastly informative, popular history at its finest.... A straightforward, relentlessly chronological, clearly written account."—The Dallas Morning News

"Vividly rendered—a near-definitive account of one of the most massive government interventions into domestic affairs on American history.... The book is filled with plucky, fast-talking characters who by dint of charm and grit pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to participate."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"Eloquent and balanced.... A splendid appreciation of the WPA."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"An immensely detailed book telling the epic story of an equally immense agency, AMERICAN-MADE does an incomparable job of chronicling an important chapter in American history, one which many of us only know from the classroom and some of us know all too well."—New Hampshire Business Review

"Well-written and helpfully structured.... Taylor intersperses individual stories to give body to stark statisticsan admiring, as well as admirable, history of FDR's main job-creation program."—Chicago Sun-Times

"A lively 'people's history' of the WPA."—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"[Taylor] has produced what is likely the most complete account yet of the much-written-about agency, just in time for the 75th anniversary of the New Deal."—Milwaukee Express

"Chock-full of facts.... Taylor captures the drama and idealism of the program's early years."—Time Out New York

"A lively and uplifting look at hard times—and a government program that worked."—Arizona Republic

"A quick read... engagingly written.... There is something here for everyone to learn."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Taylor's book is both a paean to American resourcefulness and a staunch defense of the New Deal."—The New Yorker

AUTHOR EVENTS

3/5/2008 | 7pm
Author Signing/Reading
Barnes & Noble
2289 Broadway (at 82nd Street)
New York, NY

3/12/2008 | 6:30pm
Borders Books
1801 K Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
202-466-4999

6/21/2008 | 10am-5pm
Roosevelt Reading Festival - New Deal Books
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
Hyde Park, NY

FEEDBACK

If you have any information, facts, or questions relating to AMERICAN-MADE or the WPA, e-mail bantamdell@randomhouse.com.