Buckingham House doorway in Zanesville, Ohio

Dated ca. 1935-1940, this photograph shows the Buckingham House, located at 405 Moxahala Avenue in Zanesville, Ohio, in Muskingum County. The house was built in 1819 for Alva Buckingham, and was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The two-story brick and sandstone building featured a semicircular doorway, recessed under a brick arch, and a lead glass, fan-shaped lintel above the white wood paneled door. The sidelights on either side of the door are curved windows made up of narrow pieces of glass. The Buckingham House is now a bed and breakfast. 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.