Antioch Hall at Antioch College photograph

Dated April 26, 1937, this photograph shows Antioch Hall at Antioch College in Greene County, Ohio, in Yellow Springs. Antioch College was founded in 1852 as the first nonsectarian, co-educational institution in the nation to offer the same educational opportunities to both men and women. It was also among the first to offer equal educational opportunities to African Americans. Antioch Hall, completed in 1853, served as the main building for the college and included a chapel, lecture hall, recitation rooms, laboratory, and library. This photograph is one of the many visual materials collected for use in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. 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