Battle of Fallen Timbers monument photograph

Dated to the 1930s or early 1940s, this photograph shows the Battle of Fallen Timbers Monument in Maumee, Ohio, at the Fallen Timbers Battlefield Memorial Park. Dedicated in 1929, this monument includes a statue group featuring General Anthony Wayne, and American Indian warrior, and an Anglo-American frontiersman, created by American sculptor Bruce Saville, and a statue base with a dedicatory inscription and three bronze reliefs on three sides. The monument commemorates the Battle of Fallen Timbers which took place in 1794, during which General Anthony Wayne defeated the forces of an American Indian Confederation which included warriors from the Miami, Shawnee, Delaware, and Ottawa Nations. This decisive victory for the United States Army opened the Northwest Territory, a five-state region unceded by native inhabitants, for westward expansion and led to Ohio’s statehood in 1803. The battlefield was recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1960. 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