Between 1938 and 1942 the Federal Writers' project set out to create a first-person portrait of America by sending young writers - many of whom later became famous - around the country to interview people from all occupations and backgrounds. This book presents 80 of these diverse life histories, including the stories of a North Carolina patent-medicine pitchman, a retired Oregon prospector, a Bahamian midwife from Florida, recent immigrants to New York, a Key West smuggler, Chicago jazz musicians. Historian Eric Foner called "First Person America" the finest example yet of an increasingly important genre of oral history".