Lyle Saxon to Christian

Letter 6

Lyle Saxon Comments on Christian's

"Men on Horseback" & Other Poems

WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION of Louisiana,

803 Canal Bank Building,

New Orleans

December 19, 1935,

Dear Mr. Christian:

Thank you for sending me your poems. I have read them with much interest, particularly "Men on Horseback" that should be set to music and someone like Lawrence Tibbett ought to sing it.

I wonder if you would come in to see me some day at 718 Canal Bank Building preferably between 2:30 and 4:30 P.M.

It is just possible that a further allocation of funds from Washington may be made to us. I am hoping for this and if so I hope there will be something for you with the Writers' Projects. This, of course, is not a promise but only a hope.

Sincerely yours,

Lyle Saxon,

State Director of Federal Writers' Projects

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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