Buckeye Lake amusement park photograph

Dated ca. 1935-1943, this photograph shows the Auto Skooter ride at the Buckeye Lake amusement park in Fairfield and Licking Counties. A note on the photograph's reverse reads "Fun Buckeye Lake State Park Buckeye Lake, Ohio." The amusement park boasted a roller coaster, roller skating rink, a nightclub, and the Crystal Ballroom and Pool. The ballroom attracted a number of famous performers including Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, among others. The amusement park attracted as many as fifty thousand people each day. 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