During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt instituted a Federal Writers Project as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Many People Participated in compiling a series of state-by-state guides to the country. Among the New Mexico Project workers were two women interviewers. Lou Sage Batchen and Annette Hesch Thorp, who placed particular emphasis upon gathering Hispanic women's stories, or cuentos. Rebolledo and Marques have combed through archhives to recover these invaluable first-hand accounts.