Rhode Island: A Guide To The Smallest State

American Guide Series

by Work Projects Administration

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. No library collection in Rhode Island would be complete without a copy of Rhode A Guide To The Smallest State.

620 pages, cloth

First published January 1, 1937

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lincoln Junior High School in Park Ridge, Illinois spanned seventh and eighth grades. Students were assigned to a cluster of three teachers, one teaching English, another Social Science and a third Mathematics and Science. Students would rotate from one classroom to another through the day, taking basic studies with these three and going elsewhere for Physical Education, Music, French, Shop/Home Economics and Art classes. It seemed to work pretty well, although my homeroom teacher and her English class could have been better. Our science eacher was an extreme right-winger, but a nice guy--indeed, my favorite, the one I visited after I started high school despite our diverging political views.

My favorite class, however, was Social Science, taught by Ms. Kurtzenbaugh--another right-winger, but she didn't seem passionate about it. She was no great shakes as a teacher and the curriculum could have been better, but the some of the subject matter and her assignments were interesting.

One of the assignments towards the end of eighth grade was to write a research paper about a state of our choosing. Since the task seemed daunting, I selected the smallest state, Rhode Island, on the assumption that there'd be less to have to master. My primary source was this book, checked out from the school library, written under the authority of the Works Progress Administration during the Depression. Reading it I discovered that R.I. had been a stupid choice because its history went back to the earliest colonials. I should have selected Alaska, the biggest!