One of the first actions by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression of the 1930s was to extend federal work relief to the unemployed. One such relief program was the Works Progress Administration, which FDR established in 1933. By 1941, the WPA had provided employment for 8 million people. One segment of the population which the WPA helped were artists, musicians, and writers, and the WPA instituted programs especially designed to utilize the talents of these people. An example of one such program was the Mormon Diaries project.

With assistance from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Historical Records Survey, as well as the WPA, Juanita Brooks supervised a project to collect and transcribe the diaries, journals, and biographical sketches for over 400 Latter-day Saint pioneers. The project ran from 1934 until 1942. The material gathered also contained the histories of several towns and counties.

In 1942, when the WPA disbanded, the original transcriptions were turned over to the Library of Congress. The first copy and parts of the second and third carbon copies were deposited with the Utah State Historical Society. Other copies were deposited with Brigham Young University, the University of Utah, and Utah State University. In 1950, the Library of Congress microfilmed the entire collection on 13 reels, and since that time, microfilmed copies have been added to most major collections of Western Americana or LDS genealogy in the United States.