Letter of Employment

Letter 7

Lyle Saxon Sends Christian a Letter

of Employment for Dillard Project

WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION of Louisiana

803 Canal Bank Building

New Orleans

April 6, 1936

Dear Christian:

After many trials and tribulations, we have, by the grace of God and Mr. Jacob Baker, managed at last to have you and Alice Ward Smith assigned to the project at Dillard University.

We are sending in a requisition to the personnel department today for you, and if all goes well you should be on our payroll by Thursday, and you will be paid at the rate of $82.50 a month.

Please telephone to me when you receive this letter so that we may make an appointment.

Sincerely yours,

Lyle Saxon, State Director

Federal Writers' Projects

<<---Previous Next--8->>

Lyle Saxon (1891-1946) was known in his day as "Mr. New Orleans." Saxon lived the life of the Southern gentleman, championed the romance and tradition of old New Orleans and wrote history and biography as well as fiction. As director of the Louisiana Federal Writer's project of the Works progress Administration, Saxon contributed to and compiled Gumbo Ya-Ya, a collection of Louisiana folktales, and valuable and enduring guides to new Orleans and to the state. other Saxon titles include Father Mississippi (1927), Fabulous New Orleans (1928), Old Louisiana (1929), Lafitte the Pirate (1930), and the novel Children of Strangers (1937). Robert Tallant collaborated with Saxon and other FWP researchers on Gumbo Ya-Ya. Saxon also worked with Marcus B. Christian and the Dillard Project to develop a history of blacks in Louisiana. Christian ennobled view of blacks however differed from Saxon's more traditional view of the Negro in the South