Elizabeth Clauss, Director of the WPA's Women's and Professional Projects for Northern California

Above: This unfortunately poor quality photo shows Elizabeth Clauss (1903-1997), WPA Director of Women's and Professional Projects for Northern California, in a meeting with other WPA administrators, ca. 1938. She is the lady in the light-colored clothes on the right. Image from the WPA publication, Northern California's Three Years of Achievement Under the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1938.

Above: This photo appeared in The San Francisco News, April 21, 1936. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: A map showing Clauss's jurisdiction, Northern California. The scope and number of activities under Clauss's supervision were enormous, and included projects related to healthcare, childcare (nursery schools), housekeeping assistance, education, libraries, museums, historical surveys, artwork, and sewing (see, e.g., Works Progress Administration, Report on Progress of the Works Program in San Francisco, January 1938, pp. 134-156; and also the publication highlighted at the end of this caption). For women, Clauss's division covered "28 fields of activity, the largest one of which is the statewide sewing program [which employed] approximately 8,000 women" ("Relief Work For Women," The Post Enquirer (Oakland, California), November 26, 1935). Image from the WPA publication, Northern California's Three Years of Achievement Under the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1938.

Above: Clauss's division created maps and models, including one that will soon be on full display after being boxed-up and forgotten for decades (the big WPA model of San Francisco, seen above at top). Image from the WPA publication, Northern California's Three Years of Achievement Under the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1938.

Above: A close-up section of the previous image.

Above: WPA workers under Clauss carried out many clothing and healthcare projects. Image from the WPA publication, Northern California's Three Years of Achievement Under the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1938.

Above: Shoe repair, botany, and nutrition projects. Also, in the middle-right we see WPA workers creating the largest relief map in the world, to be displayed at the Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939-1940 (for more information about this relief map, see "New Deal Accomplishment: Hundreds of thousands of maps and land models," July 14, 2026). Image from the WPA publication, Northern California's Three Years of Achievement Under the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1938.

Above: This is the largest and clearest photo I could find of Clauss. She is the woman farthest to the right (standing), and appears here with other Kappa Alpha Theta alumnae from UCLA, in 1935, not too long before she became a WPA administrator. This photo appeared in the Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1935. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Elizabeth Clauss

Elizabeth Clauss was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on January 29, 1903 and died on January 6, 1997 in Saratoga, California (see, e.g., "Elizabeth Clauss Hall," Find-a-Grave, accessed August 2, 2026).  

There does not seem to be a lot of information about Clauss online or in digital newspaper archives, but I was able to piece together the following: she graduated from UCLA; worked as a librarian; was active in drama clubs; married Wallace W. Hall, a college administrator, in 1941; held her WPA position from at least October 1935 through June 1939; and, during her work in the WPA, she split her time living in San Francisco, at 775 Post Street (the Warrington Apartment Building), and across the Bay in Belvedere. When she died, Clauss was described as a community leader for Belvedere for 60 years. 

(Some sources of information: "Elizabeth Hall," San Francisco Chronicle, January 22, 1997, p. 12; "Miss Clauss Presides," The Morning Press (Santa Barbara, California), April 6, 1934; "Marriage Licenses Issued," The San Francisco Call-Bulletin, December 25, 1941; "Works Program Launched In State," The Journal-Republican (Auburn, California), October 10, 1935, p 8; and "Compile Inventory of The County's Records," Los Gatos Times (Los Gatos, California), June 16, 1939, p. 4).     

Oregon, REA, and the Columbia Basin Electric Cooperative

Above: A booklet of Christmas Carols from the Columbia Basin Electric Cooperative (Heppner, Oregon) to its members, ca. 1955. The booklet was published by the Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Local No. 4, Chicago. Image scanned from a personal copy.

Above: Part of the back cover of the Christmas Carol booklet. Notice "Corp." is used, instead of "Cooperative" or "Co-Op." The official name of the co-op was "Columbia Basin Electric Cooperative, Incorporated." It was formed in 1940, received a low-interest loan from the New Deal's Rural Electrification Administration (REA) in 1945, and started delivering affordable electricity to Oregonians in north-central / northeast Oregon in 1949. Image scanned from a personal copy.

Above: One of the many songs included in the booklet. Today, "Columbia Basin Electric has grown from its original membership of roughly 400 to nearly 4,000 members... The Cooperative serves residential, commercial, industrial and irrigation customers throughout a service area of approximately 3,000 square miles in five counties" ("About Us," Columbia Basin Electric Cooperative, accessed April 1, 2026). Image scanned from a personal copy.

Above: A pinback highlighting the value of the Columbia Basin Electric Cooperative, as well as the many other electric cooperatives in Oregon that began or grew with the assistance of FDR, the New Deal, and REA. Image scanned from a personal collection.

Above: The REA was just one of many power-related policies and programs that helped rural Oregonians. Another was the New Deal's Electric Home and Farm Authority (EHFA) that helped them purchase electrical appliances on low-interest credit terms. This ad comes from the Greater Oregon newspaper (Albany, Oregon), February 17, 1939. Image from newspapers.com, used for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: A closer view of the bottom of the ad, showing electrical appliances that rural Oregonians could enjoy for the first time, thanks to programs like REA and EHFA - electric stoves, clothes washers, fans, lights, refrigerators, radios, toasters, and more.

The New Deal helped bring power, convenience, and improvement to Oregon!

The REA, rural Oregon, and the Coos-Curry Electric Co-op

Above: In this book (published by Bonanza Publishing, Prineville, Oregon, 1988) we learn from author Rick Steber that "Although power was available in the cities, the rural areas lagged behind until the Rural Electrification Administration was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. The REA provided low-interest loans to cooperatives of rural residents willing to share the costs of bringing power to their homes." Image scanned from a personal copy.

The New Deal brings power to rural Oregon

The Coos-Curry Electric Co-op (Port Orford, Oregon) started its life as the "Coos Electric Cooperative" in 1939. That same year it received a loan of $119,500 (about $2.8 million in 2025 dollars) from the New Deal's REA to start the process of bringing power to rural areas at or near the southern Oregon coast. It was one of 17 electric co-ops in Oregon to receive low-interest financing during the first 20 years of REA, 1936-1956.

New Deal intervention in the electric market was needed because private power companies were wholly uninterested in serving rural areas - a complete market failure that left rural Americans without modern conveniences such as electric lights, washing machines, stoves, and water pumps.

The REA helped create hundreds of rural electrical cooperatives across the nation and most are still in operation today. They provide affordable power to millions of people and highlight the enduring value of New Deal progressivism (other examples include Social Security, state parks created by the CCC, and FDIC to insure our bank deposits).

(Sources: "Coos Electrical Co-Op Has Okeh On $119,500 Loan," Coos Bay Times (Coos Bay, Oregon), November 6, 1939, p. 1; REA, Rural lines, USA: The story of the Rural Electrification Administration's first twenty-five years, 1935-1960; and "About Us," Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative, accessed March 25, 2026.)   

Integrated CCC camps in the Phoenix District

The following photos are from the Official Annual 1936, Civilian Conservation Corps, Phoenix District, 8th Corps Area (Direct Advertising Co., Baton Rouge, Louisiana), and are used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Part of CCC Company 835, at Camp F-19-A, Prescott, Arizona. These young men worked on the improvement of Prescott National Forest.

Above: Enrollees in CCC Company 822, at Camp F-33-A, Mayer, Arizona. Company 822 had work projects involving trail construction, bridge building, and soil erosion control.

Above: The undefeated baseball team of CCC Company 2870, Camp F-18-A, Prescott Arizona. Enrollees in Company 2870 engaged in the elimination of tree disease and had opportunities to learn auto mechanics, welding, mineralogy, and other vocations and skills.

Above: A band in CCC Company 1837, Camp SP-8-A, Kingman, Arizona. Company 1837 did much work at Hualapai Mountain Park (see, e.g., here and here).

Above: Another photo from Company 1837 (see previous photo). Note the older folks. They are probably war veterans who, while normally formed into their own CCC units, have been integrated into a camp of mostly younger enrollees. One can imagine the benefits of such an arrangement, such as the sharing of wisdom and experience.

CCC Integration: A complex history

The photos above highlight that the demographics of CCC camps were more complex than what many modern critics of the New Deal would have us believe (that the CCC was a hard-core discriminatory and segregationist program from start to finish). This is not to say that everything was racially fair and harmonious in the CCC--it existed in Jim Crow America, after all--just that the history needs to be examined and evaluated more carefully, for example, taking into account different ethnic groups and races, regional differences, changes over time, and the variety of reasons why some camps had a degree of integration while others had none at all.

For more photos of CCC integration, this time in the Tucson District of Arizona, see my blog post, "Interesting examples of integration in the Civilian Conservation Corps, from Arizona."

The 1953 National Rural Electric Cooperative Meeting in San Francisco: Fighting corporate greed

Above: A pinback from the 1953 NRECA meeting in San Francisco. Image scanned from a private collection.

Rural Electric Cooperatives Fight Back Against the Greedy Little Hands of Corporate America

At the 1953 meeting of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) in San Francisco, it was noted that private power companies were seeking to takeover certain public dams "to monopolize for themselves the power produced at these valuable hydroelectric resources" ("Fight Is Outlined For Public Power," The Chattanooga Times (Chattanooga, Tennessee), January 30, 1953).

NRECA noted that "certain vested interests" were seeking to takeover national forests, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Bonneville Power Administration: "We express our vigorous opposition to these proposals which are in effect a barehanded 'raid on the Commonwealth'... we urge that the Congress refuse to transfer our resources or delegate its powers to private corporations or other organizations not subject to democratic control" ("Rural Electrification Group Raps Private Firms' Clamor," Associated Press, in the Vallejo Times-Herald (Vallejo, California), January 30, 1953).

Today, Rural America needs to revive its fighting spirit, and push back against billionaires, corporations, and the super-wealthy investors who are jacking up their prices, buying politicians, and attacking needed services such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and infrastructure for clean water.

The Anti-New Deal Society: Healthcare for the disabled is being cut, so that the super-wealthy can live longer, healthier, and more luxurious lives

Above: The description for this photograph reads: "WPA Recreation leaders conduct social hour for girls group at Arkansas State Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Little Rick, Arkansas, June 1937." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph--taken in Savannah, Georgia, 1936--reads: "Blind person using the Braille writer under supervision of WPA teacher." Photo from the National Archives.

The New Deal Ethos Has Been Replaced by the Cruelty, Greed, and Selfishness of the 1%

Trump, MAGA, Republicans, and their wealthy donors have made massive budget cuts to Medicaid in order to facilitate massive tax cuts for themselves (see, e.g., "Republican Megabill’s Tax Cuts for Millionaires Are Financed by Taking Health Insurance From 4.7 Million People," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 3, 2025).

One result we are beginning to see, from this right-wing Medicaid cut, is the degradation of healthcare for the disabled (see, e.g., "Families Defend Disability Services Amid Medicaid Cuts," Kaiser Family Foundation Health News, March 2, 2026).

This degradation of services is a deliberate decision by the 1%, who control public policy, to prioritize their own luxury, health, and lifespan, over the urgent needs of the disabled.

This is the opposite of the New Deal, where the rich were taxed more, a vast array of services were offered to the disabled, and the seeds of Medicaid were planted.

FDR felt strongly that the disabled had to be taken care of and included in the national life. Here are some of his thoughts on the matter:

• "The objective of a national health program is to make available in all parts of our country and for all groups of our people the scientific knowledge and skill at our command to prevent and care for sickness and disability" (source). 

• "Figures show that there are well over three hundred thousand crippled children in the United States and probably at least an equal number of grown-up people. It is my belief, and I think the belief of the doctors of the United States, that the great majority of these citizens of ours, more than half a million of them, can be restored to useful citizenship if we can give them the most modern, scientific, medical and educational treatment" (source).

• "[We] believe in and insist on the right of the helpless, the right of the weak, and the right of the crippled everywhere to play their part in life- and survive" (source).

• "Our national concern for the handicapped and the infirm is one of our national characteristics. Indeed, it caused our enemies to laugh at us as soft" (source).

• "A generation ago people had scarcely given thought to the terms 'social security'... It is only within recent years that Government has given its attention in a serious, effective way to... Government assistance to the blind and the handicapped" (source).

• "Early in our history, we realized that the basic wealth of our land is in its healthy, enlightened children, trained to assume the responsibilities and enjoy the privileges of a democracy... If any become handicapped from any cause, we are determined that they shall be properly cared for and guided to full and useful lives. How different it is in the lands of our enemies! In Germany and Japan, those who are handicapped in body or mind are regarded as unnecessary burdens to the state" (source).

Unfortunately, we are now living in a fascist America where the rich get preferential treatment and the disabled, among many other non-wealthy groups, are brushed aside further every day, viewed as economic burdens (which is ironic because Medicaid is a much stronger economic driver than tax cuts for the rich - largely because Medicaid dollars end up circulating throughout the economy, whereas the rich often hoard and sit on their extra after-tax income and wealth). 

It would be better--both for our morality and a working-class economy--if we returned to humanity and decency. It would be better if we returned to the New Deal.

We could have continued the New Deal; instead, we've created a nightmarish culture of financial predation, economic misery, and poverty-related death

Above: FDR statue, at the FDR Memorial in Washington, DC. Photo by Carol Highsmith and provided courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The misery that has been imposed upon us, and the New Deal solution that we've pathologically rejected

In a recent Facebook post, a parent noted his/her financial struggles, and how there did not seem to be any help or hope of escaping from it: "I’m struggling deeply. I feel overwhelmed by constant financial pressure, and I’m lost. I don’t have resources to fall back on, and I don’t know where to turn. There are millionaires and billionaires in this world, yet I can’t seem to get any kind of help. Charities exist, government programs exist, but they feel unreachable. Assistance is based on gross income, not on what’s actually left after garnishments and bills. On paper, I look like I should be okay but in real life, I’m barely surviving."

This person is not alone. Financial misery and desperation is widespread in the United States. The news site MarketWatch frequently surveys and reports on issues related to financial stress. Consider these headlines:

"Americans are plagued by financial anxiety — and it’s only getting worse," May 8, 2018.

"Most Americans can’t afford life anymore — and they just don’t matter to the economy like they once did," March 7, 2025.

"Financial Stress Survey: 65% of Americans Say Finances Are Their Biggest Source of Stress," July 11, 2025. (In this article, we learn that "About 41% agreed [with the statement] that 'my finances have destroyed my mental health,' and a majority (57%) said they feel they have to 'choose between prioritizing' their finances or their mental health...")

"NFCC Reveals Financial Strain is the New Normal for American Households," November 19, 2025.

"One in five Americans can’t afford their heating bills this winter as people are blindsided by utility costs," January 23, 2026. 

And of course, it's not just MarketWatch reporting on the financial misery of Americans:

"Rich People Don’t Just Live Longer. They Also Get More Healthy Years." New York Times, January 16, 2020.

"Around half of older Americans can’t afford essential expenses: report," The Hill, July 25, 2022.

"Poverty is the 4th greatest cause of U.S. deaths," University of California, Riverside, April 17, 2023.

"Healthcare Insights: How Medical Debt Is Crushing 100 Million Americans," ILR Scheinman Institute, Cornell University, October 21, 2024.

"Most Americans can't afford a $1,000 emergency expense, report finds," CBS News, January 23, 2025.  

"In every corner of the country, the middle class struggles with affordability," Brookings Institute, December 2, 2025. 

"‘We spent $10,000 in four months’: how an emergency car repair can gut a US family’s finances: A $1,000 fix is out of reach for many Americans – and so is good public transportation," The Guardian, December 20, 2025.

At the same time that working-class Americans are getting financially pummeled, and dying prematurely due to the problems associated with poverty, the wealthiest Americans are getting richer and richer and richer. Forbes reports: "Tariffs. Inflation. Slowing employment. None of it has hit the fortunes of America’s billionaires. The 400 richest people in the U.S. are worth a record $6.6 trillion after getting $1.2 trillion richer over the past year amid surging stock markets and AI mania."

And we know that the super-rich, by and large, are not spending their days contemplating how to help alleviate the struggles of the working-class (recall that Facebook post above). No, what they're doing instead is hoarding wealth and seeking ever-greater and more "sustainable luxury."

FDR famously said, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

America has utterly failed that test of progress.

We could expand Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; we could enhance union participation (which in turn enhances wages and benefits); we could tax the super-rich at much higher rates. In other words, we could do more of the things that the New Deal did or facilitated in decades past - things that created the world's greatest middle-class and breathed life into both the General Welfare clause of the Constitution and the American Dream itself. 

But we won't do those things. Our politics, media, and voters are so jacked up on culture wars--e.g., the Democrats' obsession with identity politics, MAGA's rabies-like anger over diversity, equity, and inclusion, and Fox News and its ilk profiting off cultural hate and dysfunction--that we (collectively speaking) are willing to let ourselves be economically bludgeoned to death by the financial elite.

And make no mistake about it: This is exactly what the super-wealthy want, especially those on the right. They want us so bound up in anger and hate towards one another that we have no energy or attention left to combat their gluttonous and homicidal greed. They want us foaming at the mouth and fighting against each other over matters of immigration, LGBTQ, and guns - and not on matters of economic fairness. And we have dutifully and stupidly obliged them. This is why, for example, you see a majority of Republican voters in support of Social Security and tax increases on the rich, but consistently voting for politicians who attack those policies. They're voting on cultural issues, not on enhancing Social Security, and not on increasing inheritance taxes on billionaires and their nepo babies - nepo babies who will one day lord over us with increasingly vicious actions and public policy.

In sum, Americans across the political spectrum are getting financially beaten to death; and they agree on many of the economic policies that would help them avoid the beating. But they can't come together for candidate selection and voting because the super-wealthy have them enlisted in the Great Culture War. They're dying on the economic battlefield--one financial wretch slaying another--as their wealthy puppet masters giggle from above.