The University of Wisconsin applied for a grant through the Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers' Project in 1939 to record economic, cultural, historical, and other information from members of the Oneida tribe. The work took place under the leadership of UW anthropologists Morris Swadesh and Floyd Lounsbury. The project began with an emphasis on the Oneida language and Oneida cultural tales and traditions. After the end of the initial grant, additional funding was received to conduct broader cultural studies. This evolved into a panoramic exercise of contemporary autobiography and narrative recording of contemporary Oneida lives.
During 1941 and 1942, about a dozen native-speaking Oneida men and women received training from Swadesh and Lounsbury in using a phonetic alphabet of the Oneida language created by the two anthropologists. Thereafter they were directed to collect stories of Oneida life, work, culture, religions, and recreation through a process of interviewing each other, their friends, and relatives. They also produced autobiographical accounts of their own lives.
