The Works Project Administration Cooperative Project was started in April of 1937 under the
auspices of the WPA Administration for the city of New York, Women's and Professional
Division. It was initiated by Valery John Tereshtenko, former assistant professor of
Cooperation at the Institute of Agricultural Cooperation, Prague, Czechoslovakia. The
project was sponsored by: Professor B. Ostrolenk of the College of the City of New York who
served as director, Professors O.S. Morgan and P.F. Brissenden of Columbia University,
Professor P. Studensky of New York University, and Professor B. Dressler of the College of
the City of New York who all served as technical advisors, and lastly the Cooperative League
of the U.S. as the co-sponsoring agency. The project was run under the technical supervision
of Valery John Tereshtenko.
The project's purpose was to prepare a complete bibliography of the literature pertaining
to the Cooperative Movement, covering all its branches (consumers cooperation, credit
unions, agricultural marketing associations, etc.), and all its phases (theory, history,
statistics, legal aspect, social and economic effects, etc.). Each item included in the
bibliography is accompanied by a short comprehensive abstract. Books, pamphlets, magazine
articles, mimeographed material, proceedings of conferences, and reports are also covered by
the survey. Besides featuring material available in English, it includes material in foreign
languages, English abstracts are included for each foreign language publication.
This project employed a staff of 90 workers, such as translators of 14 different languages
(Swedish, Finnish, Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, and others), research workers,
statisticians, lawyers and others.
