WPA Circus!

Above: Workers getting tents ready for a WPA circus in New York City, 1935-1936. The circus was part of the WPA's theatre program. The driving force behind the circus, as well as other art & entertainment programs in the WPA, was the notion that unemployed actors and performers needed work just as much as other jobless Americans. Further, the WPA art programs offered opportunities for lower-income Americans to enjoy things that were frequently reserved for the well-to-do, for example, opera, art exhibitions, and symphonies. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum and the New Deal Network.

Above: The tents are ready! Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum and the New Deal Network.

 

Above: A clown car drums up interest for the circus. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum and the New Deal Network.

 

Above: Clowns entertain children at the circus. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum and the New Deal Network.

 

Above: Sledge hammers are no match for the Strongest Woman Alive! Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum and the New Deal Network.

 

 Above: Circus-goers enjoying the festivities. Note the WPA work sign to the right. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum and the New Deal Network.

 

Above: A WPA poster advertisement for a puppet circus. The large open space on the poster was probably intended for customized writing, e.g., different locations and times. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

 

Above: The circus gives a special performance for disabled children at Bellevue Hospital, New York City. Sadly, conservatives in Congress were vehemently opposed to the circus and all the other WPA theatre programs. They thought it was a waste of money, prone to racial mixing, and a communist plot to destroy the nation (see, for example, Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times, by Susan Quinn, 2009). So, these conservative politicians shut the program down in 1939 and made sure that children, like the ones you see in the photo above, could no longer enjoy it. We have a similar type of Congress today--cynical of any government program designed for the less fortunate, and completely submissive to Corporate America. And that is why, today, low-income children are much more likely to be experiencing homelessness than experiencing a play, a symphony, or a circus. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.