Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The New Deal and the American Indian: Apaches

Above: Part of "Apache Scenes," a mural by Allan Houser (1915-1994), created while he was in the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts, 1940. This painting is in the U.S. Department of Interior building. Born in Apache, Oklahoma, "Allan Houser (originally Hauzous) grew up in a world of farming and ranching, rich with the Apache heritage of his people as taught through the songs and stories of his father... His paintings, which were infused with his Native American background, earned him national recognition" ("Allan Houser," Smithsonian American Art Museum). Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and Carol M. Highsmith.

Above: "Indian using an air compressor on trail construction, ECW [Civilian Conservation Corp, CCC] project, Fort Apache." Photo and caption from "Indians at Work," Office of Indian Affairs, October 15, 1933, p. 30.

Apache Indians in the CCC performed a large amount of work on their lands. For example, the April 1, 1934 edition of "Indians at Work" reported: "For many years past on the Fort Apache Reservation there has annually been much unnecessary fire damage because of a lack of forest roads and trails. Extensive areas bearing a stand of yellow pine timber have been inaccessible, a fact which accounts for the unusual difficulty and expense in controlling these fires... Funds for this work, however, have for a long time not been available. Not until the institution of the Emergency Conservation Work program has there been the means with which to construct these improvements" ("Forest Protection and Range Improvement on Fort Apache,"  p. 27).

Interestingly, the problems that the Apache had to deal with, prior to the CCC, have reemerged today in various parts of the country. Our collective rejection of the New Deal has played a large role in the record-setting wildfires that we've been experiencing these past several years. Inaccessible areas of forest, and insufficient manpower, are allowing wildfires to become much larger, damaging, and deadly than they otherwise would be. FEMA has recognized this problem and recently provided funds to California for additional manpower. Unfortunately, with constant Republican pressure to cut federal spending (in order to give tax breaks to their rich donors) it's extremely unlikely that this funding will be adequate or long-lasting.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Books to the people... by any means necessary

Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA brought millions of books to the people...

By rowboat...

(WPA library services bringing books to tenant farmers in Issaquena County, Mississippi, ca. 1935-1943. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

By barge...

(A WPA library barge in Sunflower County, Mississippi, ca. 1935-1943. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

 By horseback...

(The now-famous packhorse librarians of Kentucky, 1938 - committed to getting books and information to remote, rural areas. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

By horse & wagon...

(WPA librarians in rural Mississippi, ca. 1935-1943. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

By Chevrolet...

(Happy to bring books to the citizens of North Carolina, 1938. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

By bookmobile...

 (Bookmobiles were a big attraction back in the day. This one is in Thurston County, Washington, 1939. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

By trailer...

(A WPA trailer full of books in Des Moines, Iowa, ca. 1935-1943. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

By hospital cart...

(A WPA librarian delivers books to hospital patients in Greenville, Mississippi, 1938Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

By reading to those who could not...

(A WPA packhorse librarian reads to a man who does not know how to read, in Leslie County, Kentucky, 1938Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

With new libraries...

(Williamsport, Maryland, 1937. WPA workers built 151 new libraries across the United States. Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)

With library repairs and improvements...

(A new roof for the "College Point branch of the Queens Library system," New York City, ca. 1935-1943. WPA workers repaired or improved 923 libraries across the countryPhoto courtesy of the National Archives.)

With libraries in the streets... 

(WPA and New York City outdoor library, ca. 1935-1943. Across the U.S., WPA workers operated or assisted over 6,000 librariesPhoto courtesy of the National Archives.)

With story hours...

(WPA-supported story hour in Tuppers Plains, Ohio, ca. 1935-1943. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.)

With friendly persuasion...

(WPA poster. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

With book repairs...

(Some of the 500 women paid by the WPA to repair books in Michigan, ca. 1935-1943. Across the country, WPA workers repaired over 94 million booksPhoto courtesy of the National Archives.)

With their own books...

(A page from the WPA-written and illustrated book, "The Making of America," Sponsored by the Pennsylvania State Department of Public Instruction, and published by Smith & Durrell, Inc., New York, 1942. The WPA wrote, compiled, or published well over 1,000 books, pamphlets, magazine articles, etc. Image scan from personal copy.)

And with special projects for people with special needs...

 (WPA workers constructing talking books, New York City, ca. 1935-1943, to be distributed to blind Americans all across the country. Project sponsored by the Library of Congress and supervised by the American Foundation for the BlindPhoto courtesy of the National Archives.)

Thursday, January 25, 2018

New Deal Ice Art (5/5): "First Ice"

Above: "First Ice," a screen print on wove paper, by Leonard Pytlak (1910-1998), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1941. An article in the October 24th, 1942 edition of The Evening Standard newspaper (Uniontown, Pennsylvania) noted that Pytlak had "won the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941" for his silkcreen color experiments ("Artist's Use of Stencil Gives Wide Color Range," p. 6). Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

New Deal Ice Art (4/5): "Filling the Ice House"

Above: "Filling the Ice House," an oil painting by Harry Gottlieb (1895-1992), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), 1934. I featured this painting on my blog about two-and-a-half years ago. A description for the painting, on the website of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, reads, "In January 1934, artist Harry Gottlieb signed on with the PWAP and looked for American workers he could paint near his home in the artists' colony of Woodstock, New York. He found these men harvesting ice off lakes and streams as local men had done every winter since the early 1800s. They sawed the thick layer of natural ice into long strips and then cut off large blocks.... [they used] long hooks and wooden ramps to maneuver the slick, heavy ice into large commercial icehouses where they neatly stacked the blocks... Throughout the year icehouses along the Hudson River stored ice that was shipped by train to New York City. Families and grocers put the ice into insulated iceboxes that kept food from spoiling... and then electric refrigerators became popular. When Gottlieb documented the natural ice business it was gradually melting away." Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

New Deal Ice Art (3/5): "Icy Street"

Above: "Icy Street," an artwork by Don Freeman (1908-1978), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1934. Freeman also created some art for the WPA's federal theatre program and recalled those times during an oral history interview with the Smithsonian: "A lot of interesting [things] happened there... What was it called, 'Living Newspaper,' oh, marvelous things in those days, you just knew it was a renaissance of the theatre." Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Museum of the City of New York.

Monday, January 22, 2018

New Deal Ice Art (2/5): "Foot of Glacier, Valdez, Alaska"

Above: "Foot of Glacier, Valdez, Alaska," an oil painting by Vernon Smith (1894-1969), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1937-1941. In the June 22nd, 1941 edition of The Miami News, it was reported that "An art exhibition entitled 'Alaska' opens on Monday in the music room of the administration building of the University of Miami. It consists of 14 paintings by Prescott Jones and Vernon Smith, Massachusetts artists who were among 12 of outstanding ability, from various parts of the country, assigned for a period of work in Alaska under the WPA Art program" ("'Alaska' Art Exhibit To Be Shown At University Administration Hall"). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Saturday, January 20, 2018

New Deal Ice Art (1/5): "Cutting Ice"

Above: "Cutting Ice," a wood engraving print by Lou Barlow (1908-2011), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. A brief obituary for Barlow appeared in the New York Times, noting that he was a "WPA, graphic artist and medical illustrator" and that  he "died at home on February 1 [2011], at 102 years." According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he was "formerly known as Louis Breslow." Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

The New Deal's helping hand to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation inspires... while our present-day indifference shocks the conscience

Above: This photo shows American Indians enrolled in a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 1933. CCC work on the reservation included protecting trees from insect damage, increasing the size of buffalo herds, constructing water reservoirs for livestock, putting up telephone lines, fence maintenance, making truck trails to access timber reserves, building firebreaks, firefighting, and planting thousands of trees for the Shelterbelt Project (from various issues of "Indians at Work," 1933-1941). Photo from "Indians At Work," U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, December 1, 1933, p. 28.

Above: The Pine Ridge CCC men, working on the "Kyle Dam," and related projects, 1938. Other New Deal programs assisted the Pine Ridge Indians too. For example, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration contributed cattle ("Indians at Work," May 15, 1935, p. 21), and the following was reported in the September 1939 edition of "Indians at Work": "With the completion of the new $16,800 Indian day school, largest rammed earth structure known, a new chapter has been written into the story of education on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The modern schoolhouse was sponsored by the United States Indian Service and constructed by WPA labor" (p. 34). Photo from "Indians At Work," U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, April 1938, p. 24.

Above: The Pine Ridge CCC men working on the "White Clay Dam" and irrigation project. The men of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation were very appreciative of the CCC. One wrote: "This work has provided an income for us and has enabled us to keep alive while, at the same time, it has given us a better perspective on our goals in life" ("Indians at Work," July 1, 1936, p. 19). Photo from "Indians At Work," U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, September 1938, p. 21.

Above: "Tribal Self-Government at Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D., Oglala-Sioux Council." The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (The "Indian New Deal") promoted a return to tribal self-government. Photo from "Indians At Work," U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, February 1941, p. 21.

Above: The positive relationship between the federal government and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation during the New Deal era was not a one-way street. For example, the reservation contributed to America's victory in World War II. The May 1943 edition of "Indians at Work," reported that "Sergeant William Iron Elk, Pine Ridge Sioux, and now a radio operator in the Signal Corps, was wounded in action in the Meuse-Argonne and Ypres in the last war [World War I]. Iron Elk is 42 years old." We also see, in the photo above, "Pfc. Clement P. Crazy Thunder, Pine Ridge Sioux... a Paramarine." The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation also bought war bonds to support the war effort, $50,000 worth as of May, 1943 (about $720,000 in today's dollars). Photo from "Indians At Work," U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, May 1943, p. 39.

President Franklin Roosevelt's statement on the American Indian

"We can and should, without further delay, extend to the Indian the fundamental rights of political liberty and local self-government and the opportunities of education and economic assistance that they require in order to attain a wholesome American life... the continuance of autocratic rule, by a Federal Department, over the lives of more than two hundred thousand citizens of this Nation is incompatible with American ideals of liberty. It also is destructive of the character and self-respect of a great race... the figures of impoverishment and disease point to their impending extinction, as a race, unless basic changes in their conditions of life are effected" (Statement on the Wheeler-Howard Bill [also known as the Indian Reorganization Act], April 28, 1934).

The New Deal response to the American Indian: empathy and action

New Deal policymakers saw the needs of the Pine Ridge Indians and responded with action. The projects above highlight just a few of the ways that they tried to improve their quality of life. In December 1933 the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, John Collier, reported that, "Except for the infirm and aged, the 8,200 Pine Ridge Sioux all have work. Save for the various emergency grants [which funded the New Deal work programs], most of them would be on the ration list now" ("Indians at Work," December 15, 1933, p. 1).

New Deal assistance for Pine Ridge was not an anomaly. For example, across the U.S. over 85,000 American Indians were employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps; and it was noted that "The improved economic condition of the Indians has definitely influenced their morale. They were participants in the planning, they did the work, and they directly benefited by the results." And like the Pine Ridge Indians, "Thousands of enrollees became skilled workers as a direct result of their participation in the Corps and are now contributing to the war effort, as members of the armed forces, as skilled workers in war industries, and as producers of food" (Perry H. Merrill, Roosevelt's Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942, 1981, pp. 44-45, citing reports from the time).

Other New Deal programs employed American Indians too, for example, the WPA and the National Youth Administration (but not on the same scale as the CCC - see, e.g., Donald S. Howard, The WPA and Federal Relief Policy, 1943, pp. 297-298). Also, the Public Works Administration funded infrastructure on Indian land, the New Deal's Arts and Crafts Board protected and promoted native art, the Public Works of Art Project hired Indian artists, and the short-lived but massive Civil Works Administration provided jobs for American Indians involving home repair, sewing, cutting firewood, disaster response, roadwork, and more (see, e.g., Henry G. Alsberg (ed.), America Fights the Depression: A Photographic Record of the Civil Works Administration, 1934, pp. 141-145.)      

Above: "Classrooms and quarters of the first Navajo day school to be completed under PWA." Photo from "Indians At Work," U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, March 1, 1935, p. 31.

Our present-day response to the American Indian: a wicked indifference

Compared to the quick, caring, and significant New Deal response, our present-day indifference to the plight of the Pine Ridge Indians shocks the conscience. As the super-wealthy keep hoarding more and more cash, and as Republicans keep giving them more and more tax breaks, and as American voters keep putting more and more sociopaths into high political office, let's take a look at what's happening at the Pine Ridge Reservation:

1. Record-breaking rates of suicide.

2. Widespread poverty and despair, with a per capita income of less than $10,000.

3. 80% of residents without a job.

4. Lack of proper heating in brutally cold winters.

5. Lowest life expectancy in the United States.

(#'s 1-4, from "Native Americans Who Can’t Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm," Huffington Post, January 13, 2018; #5 is hyperlinked to its source.) 

These types of problems have been going on for a long time on the Pine Ridge Reservation (see, for example, "Ghosts of Wounded Knee," Harper's Magazine, December 2009), as well as other reservations. But that hasn't stopped the Trump administration from threatening Pine Ridge with budget cuts that would "touch every part of life from access to clean drinking water to block grants that fund programs to feed the elderly to much-needed after-school programs" ("Looming Trump budget cuts deepen distress on Pine Ridge," CNN, May 28, 2017). The Obama Administration, though not as callous as Republicans of course, offered only band-aid solutions - nothing too bold, nothing that would offend their neoliberal sensibilities.

What the hell is wrong with us?

Unfortunately, nothing is likely to change for the Pine Ridge Indians until Americans stop voting for the puppets of Wall Street and the puppets of secretive, reclusive billionaires. And I don't see that happening anytime soon. Instead, it looks like we're just going to keep sinking further and further into the cesspool of plutocracy and apathy.

At the end of the day, the poverty of the Pine Ridge Indians is simply a reflection of our national poverty of character. We have exchanged the New Deal ethos for an ethos of shameless indifference. Yet still, somewhere deep down inside, perhaps in crevices of our conscience that we haven't tapped into for decades, we know that we should be ashamed.

"I submit that neoliberal capitalist culture in the U.S. deadens feelings of social solidarity, pathologizes how we view ourselves and stunts our natural feelings of empathy and moral responsibility."

--Gary Olson, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, "Why So Little Empathy and Compassion Within American Culture?" Common Dreams, January 14, 2018, emphasis added.

Monday, January 15, 2018

The New Deal: Millions of new opportunities and benefits for African Americans

"If [the WPA theatre program] had been less alive it might have lived longer. But I do not believe anyone who worked on it regrets that it stood from first to last against reaction, against prejudice, against racial, religious, and political intolerance."

--Hallie Flanagan, director of the WPA's Federal Theatre Project, responding to the closing of her project, in 1939, by conservative congressmen who hated, among other things, its racial inclusiveness (Hallie Flanagan, Arena, 1940, p. 367).

Above: A new chemistry building for Howard University in Washington, D.C., built with funds from the New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA). At the dedication for this building, October 26, 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt said, "Despite the constant raising of the scholastic standards of the University, as the years went by, the demand for higher training and higher education among our Negro citizens has increased to an extent which has created a strain upon its facilities. And so the Federal Government has provided three new structures for it at this time, and there are more to come... As far as it was humanly possible, the Government has followed the policy that among American citizens there should be no forgotten men and no forgotten races." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: African American actors rehearse their scenes on a WPA theatre project in Birmingham, Alabama, 1936. The New Deal offered millions of new opportunities and benefits for African Americans: Jobs, job training, adult education, recreation projects, art projects, health clinics, new libraries, new schools, and much more. The February 1939 edition of the African American journal, Opportunity, noted: "It is to the eternal credit of the administrative officers of the WPA that discrimination on various projects because of race has been kept to a minimum and that in almost every community Negroes have been given a chance to participate in the work program." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

The New Deal was not perfect in its racial inclusion; FDR was constrained by existing prejudices & customs in America, and also the need for southern political support. How far he could have pushed for more racial inclusion will be a topic debated for eternity. However, it is indisputable that the New Deal opened up millions of new opportunities and benefits for the African American community. Roosevelt surrounded himself, in one way or another, with people committed to social justice and racial inclusion - Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Ellen Woodward, Aubrey Williams, Hallie Flanagan, and Helen Tamiris, to name just a few. 

The Roosevelt Administration also opened up new opportunities for African Americans in the federal government. For example, when education advocate Mary McLeod Bethune told Roosevelt how important the National Youth Administration (NYA, a subdivision of the WPA) was to young African American men & women, "The president was openly moved by her speech, and, grasping her hand in both of his, assured her that he would do his best" (Nancy Ann Zrinyi Long, The Life and Legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune, Cocoa, FL: Florida Historical Society Press, 2004, pp. 36-37). Shortly thereafter, Bethune was in charge of a new Office of Minority Affairs within the NYA.

And of course, FDR was married to a woman who was constantly prodding him to do the right thing. After Eleanor Roosevelt died, Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "The impact of her personality and its unwavering devotion to high principle and purpose cannot be contained in a single day or era."

Sunday, January 7, 2018

"Necessitous men are not free men": FDR's definition of economic slavery; debt slavery today; and the humiliation & shame that keeps it going

Above: "Barbed Wire," a drypoint etching by Edward Hagedorn (1902-1982), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

FDR's description of economic slavery

During his 1936 acceptance speech for presidential renomination, Franklin Roosevelt described economic slavery: 

"An old English judge once said: 'Necessitous men are not free men.' Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for. For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government... The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live."

The New Deal did much to liberate the common man & woman from the bullies of the super-wealthy class. FDIC was instituted to protect small depositors from having their life savings wiped out by reckless bankers. The SEC was created to protect people from fraudulent stocks. Social Security was created to ensure that elderly Americans wouldn't be completely dependent on the malignant whims of the 1%. And so on and so on.

Debt slavery today

Thanks to the many blood-thirsty right-wing & neoliberal policies of the past several decades, especially the inappropriately named Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCA), which severely burdened low-income Americans, millions of people are now trapped in debt they cannot escape and cannot resolve

Through a combination of stagnant wages, job outsourcing, job instability (for example, the "gig economy"), union deterioration, and the new debt-relief restrictions of BAPCA, there is a whole class of people who are now permanently insolvent. And their permanent insolvency has devastating (and deadly) consequences for their lives. Business journalist Martin Merzer explains that the permanently insolvent cannot get a fresh start in life (as bankruptcy intended), have perpetually bad credit scores, and are "endlessly harassed by creditors and are more likely to lose their homes through foreclosure" ("Study: Law creates many too broke to file for bankruptcy," Nasdaq, February 2, 2015).

Permanent insolvency also limits job opportunities. An applicant's low credit score can make an employer view him or her as an irresponsible person. It's a sinister, snowballing quandary, a perfect example of America's financial and labor market ruthlessness: You lose your job, then your credit score tanks because you can't pay your bills, then your lower credit score hinders your job search, and then your credit score drops some more, making it more difficult still to get a good job. And policymakers, many immersed in sociopathy, do little or nothing to help you. (See, e.g., "Discredited: How employment credit checks keep qualified workers out of a job," Demos, February 2013.)

Permanent insolvency has also, no doubt, helped fuel America's rise in suicides and other deaths of despair - especially for men. Unable to fill their breadwinner role, unable to hold their heads up high, and lacking the income to maintain a family, or even begin a relationship, they decide (after years of pain, depression, and loneliness) to kill themselves with a bullet, a fall, a bottle, or an overdose. As Dr. Angus Deaton of Princeton University explains:

"... many more men are finding themselves in a much more hostile labor market with lower wages, lower quality and less permanent jobs. That's made it harder for them to get married. They don't get to know their own kids. There's a lot of social dysfunction building up over time. There's a sense that these people have lost this sense of status and belonging. And these are classic preconditions for suicide" ("The Forces Driving Middle-Aged White People's 'Deaths Of Despair'," NPR, March 23, 2017).

Shame and humiliation: The fuel for debt slavery

Attorney Ellen Brown of the Public Banking Institute recently discussed student debt slavery and the bank lobby that facilitates it, and wrote, "An organized student movement could be an effective counter-lobby" ("Let's end student debt slavery: Historically, debt and austerity have been used as control mechanisms for subduing the people," Alternet, January 6, 2018). 

Brown is right but, unfortunately, shame and humiliation prevents a lot of Americans from fighting back against their slavery, lest their own poverty and debt expose them to public ridicule. You see, despite our endless blabbering about being a Christian nation, we are anything but. In direct contradiction to Christ's teachings, we shame the poor, calling them "takers," "parasites," and "losers." Super-wealthy Americans have been extremely effective at turning middle-class and poor Americans against one another. 

Through the think tanks, talking heads, televangelists, media outlets, and political marionettes they fund, the super-wealthy have created a wide-ranging cult of personal responsibility. They've convinced tens of millions of people that poverty and debt are self-inflicted wounds, by people who don't want to work, irresponsible people. When one middle-class or poor person says, "I need help," another middle-class or poor person is ready with a "F&ck you, you should have made better decisions" response. And the latter-type people, thoroughly brainwashed and devoid of critical thinking skills, provide cover for all the financial fraud, job exporting, and political manipulation that the super-wealthy want to engage in. Yes, the useful idiots have created the necessary distractions for the rich to burglarize the American Dream, and thus enslave millions through debt.

The solution... that we don't have the energy for

Is there a solution to debt slavery, and the overall decline of our financial health? Yes, and it roots are in the New Deal. But until the people have the energy to learn, and think deeply, about the New Deal, it ain't gonna happen. And unfortunately, I see no sign, whatsoever, of that happening in our lifetimes. Indeed, seeing so many liberals rally behind the Clintons, or the Obamas, or, even worse, Joe Biden, one of the architects of debt slavery, tells me that, not only are conservatives lost and unaware, but so too are many liberals.   

It seems to me that the great mass of the country is stuck in an endless self-destructive loop, creating fertile ground for continued or worsening debt slavery. Like junkies, we take a hit of tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy, and our quality of life diminishes. Then we take a hit of deregulation, and our quality of life drops again. Then we take a hit of privatization, and our quality of life falls even further. Every step of the way, we crawl and grovel to our super-wealthy drug suppliers, the holy "JOB CREATORS," begging them for another hit, and then we waste away more and more - stagnant wages, exported jobs, more debt, less-secure retirements, and now, permanent insolvency. 

Indeed, the latest Trump/GOP tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy is just another sign that, collectively, we can't critically think our way out of a paper bag.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

WPA Correspondence Courses

Above: This photo was taken in San Francisco, ca. 1935-1943. The description for it reads, "Education by Mail - With 80 to 90 requests coming in each day from CCC camps and other sources the correspondence division of the WPA Education Program of the California State Department of Education at San Francisco is a veritable beehive of industry. Approximately 8,000 lessons, covering 22 different courses are sent out and received for correction each month. The assembling table is in the foreground. The bins in the rear hold the completed courses and through the door at the right is a mimeograph [machine]. A personnel of 24 is required to keep these courses moving." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: A closer look at the mimeograph machine, in the back room, and a man duplicating WPA course materials. Mimeograph machines were commonly used before photocopy machines.

The Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43 (1946), states that "The chief kinds of adult education projects were: literacy and citizenship classes; vocational training; parent and homemaking education; workers' education; general adult education; correspondence courses; and education in avocational and leisure-time activities... Correspondence courses were conducted in a number of States for the benefit of workers remote from, or unable to attend, school. The courses of study were prepared under the supervision of State universities or State departments of education; some were noncredit courses, while others provided high school or college credits" (p. 61). The WPA also participated in youth education, for example, instruction in art, music, and sports.