Above: "Jungle," an oil painting by Paul Kirtland Mays (1887-1961), created while he participated in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, ca. 1933. Mays studied at several art schools and had a successful painting career before the Great Depression came along and destroyed it. The New Deal stepped in to help, giving Mays (and many like him) a modest-paying job to create art for the public. That's what the New Deal did. As opposed to the right-wing mentality that we see today--a mentality that snickers at people hurt by economic downturns, labeling them "takers" and "parasites"--the New Deal offered people opportunities.
Which approach to economic recessions do you prefer? The approach that pits citizens against one another, fostering an atmosphere of contempt, or the approach that creates beautiful art and needed infrastructure? Believe it or not, a lot of people prefer the former - and that is one of the primary reasons we don't have a New Deal today (other reasons include rampant tax evasion, free market fanaticism, weak political leadership, and campaign money--a.k.a. bribery--from millionaires & billionaires who are opposed to public jobs for the unemployed). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: "Summer Day," a wood engraving on paper, by Minnie Lois Murphy (1901-1962), created while she participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1937. According to the website askART, Murphy "earned a BS from Columbia Univ. Studied at the Art Students League and
was a pupil of Boardman Robinson, Kimon Nicolaides, and George Grosz," and her art was exhibited at places like the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Art Institute of Chicago,
Minneapolis Art Institute, Brooklyn
Museum, and the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: "Rapid Transit," a woodcut by Fred Becker (1913-2004), created while he participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: The description for this photo, taken at Antietam National Cemetery in 1940, reads, "Holding sealed jar to be placed in the northwest corner of wall. Miss Ida F. Mongan, Battlefield Clerk, Miss Mary Kane Knode, NYA Asst. Office Help." What's in the jar? Civil War items? New Deal-related items? Both? And is the jar still there? Perhaps we'll never know. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.
Above: The description for this photo reads, "Antietam Battlefield Personnel and WPA force at the cornerstone laying, April 25, 1940, in northwest corner of cemetery wall." Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.
Above: WPA men working on the cemetery wall at Antietam National Cemetery. The repair & improvement of the wall was just one of many New Deal projects around the Antietam National Battlefield area. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.
Above: The cemetery wall today. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: The Coast Guard Cutter Taney was built with PWA funds in the mid-1930s. Today, it is a museum ship in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, contributing to the local tourism economy. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: During World War II, the Taney was fitted with three additional 5-inch guns, anti-aircraft batteries, and depth charges. The Taney saw extensive action in both the Atlantic and Pacific, knocking down several enemy aircraft and earning three battle stars. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Above: The Taney also saw action on December 7, 1941, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Additionally, during her active duty years the Taney served in Vietnam, seized illegal drugs, participated in search & rescue missions, and performed significant weather research duties. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: Much of the Taney's interior dates to its original construction, including the engines and engine room - a maze of pipes, wires, and gauges. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: The Taney served America for half-a-century, commissioned in 1936 and decommissioned in 1986. Today, she is a National Historic Landmark. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: The first day of work on the Taney, May 1, 1935 - U.S.C.G. Cutter No. 68 (not to be confused with the Taney's hull number "37"). Many people, e.g., U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, claim that the spending programs of the New Deal did not work. Yet, the workers you see in the photo above were certainly happy to have a job courtesy of PWA funds. And the incredible service of the Taney to her country, and her continued economic contributions to Baltimore's Inner Harbor, also seem to dispute the "New Deal did not work" talking point. And remember, the Taney is just one of thousands of New Deal projects that we still benefit from today. Indeed, you can visit the Living New Deal for over 10,000 other examples. Photo courtesy of Historic Ships in Baltimore.
Sources: (1) Treasury Department Appropriation Bill for 1936, Hearing Before the Subcommittee of House Committee on Appropriation, 74th Congress, First Session, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935, p. 434. (2) Federal Works Agency, Millions for Defense, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940, p. 41. (3) Historic Ships in Baltimore. (4) Naval History and Heritage Command. (5) U.S. Coast Guard, Historian's Office.
Above: "Paper Workers," an oil painting by Douglass Crockwell (1904-1968), created while he participated in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1934. It is noted that "By showing the workers as blocky figures that appear to be roughly carved out of wood, the artist visually likened the men to the source of the wood pulp from which they made newsprint," and "The geometric forms and dull gray colors of the men make them appear
like components in the machine, and their concentration emphasizes the
determination of many Americans to overcome hardships during the
Depression. The suited figure on the left, however, represents the new
managerial class, who controlled the men as well as the machines. His
presence emphasizes the threat to hourly workers in the 1930s, as
machinery grew more sophisticated and required supervisors rather than
laborers." Image and quotes courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: "Central Park," an oil painting by Carl Gustaf Nelson (1898-1988), created while he participated in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1934. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: A CCC statue at Watoga State Park, in southeastern West Virginia. There are two plaques on the statue. The first reads, "CCC Worker. This statue is erected in memory of all the boys who served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942. Dedicated June 5, 1999." The second reads, "This statue was erected by former CCC enrollees." Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: A CCC-built cabin at Watoga State Park. According to the West Virginia Department of Commerce, "Development [of the park] began in 1933, when three different CCC camps were established: Camp Watoga, Camp Seebert and Camp Will Rogers. The first projects included the road, cabin construction, office/restaurant building, superintendent’s residence and the dam. The arboretum was established in 1938 with six and a half miles of trails. The last CCC project was the swimming pool completed in 1940." Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: Watoga Lake, created by the CCC. At Watoga State Park today, you can swim, hike, boat, fish, and play a variety of games at the park's game court and recreation building. You can do all these things, thanks to the CCC and the New Deal. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: Eleanor Roosevelt hands a donation check to author Pearl Buck for relief efforts in China, 1940. According to the group Pearl S. Buck International, the two women met in 1924, had a long friendship, and exchanged many letters. Photo courtesy of Temple University and ExplorePAhistory.com.
Above: The birthplace of Pearl Buck, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places. Tours of the house are offered by the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation & Museum. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: Historical marker for the birthplace of Pearl Buck. Buck won a Pulitzer Prize, a Nobel Prize, and, like Eleanor Roosevelt, was a passionate advocate for human rights. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: Pearl Buck was friends with author Sinclair Lewis, who wrote It Can't Happen Here, a book about fascism taking hold in America. The story was frequently performed as a play by WPA actors. Lewis and Buck shared a dislike for the totalitarian movements occurring across the globe during the 1930s, and their social activism led some critics to disparage their writing awards. But Lewis recommended to Buck: "Don't let anyone minimize for you the receiving of the Nobel Prize. It is a tremendous event, the greatest of a writer's life" (Kim Becnel, The Rise of Corporate Publishing and Its Effects on Authorship in Early Twentieth Century America, 2014, p. 90). WPA poster image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Above: "Natural Power," an oil painting by Raymond White Skolfield (1909-1996), created while he participated in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1934: "From wood fires to hydroelectricity, Raymond Skolfield's painting tells how power shaped the town of Proctor, Vermont." Photo and quote courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
(Franklin Roosevelt, 1932. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.)
President Roosevelt signed the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) on June 26, 1934. It was "the first federal gun control law" ("Franklin Roosevelt: The Father of Gun Control," New Republic, December 19, 2012). A major part of the law was a tax, but according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, "the NFA had an underlying purpose unrelated to revenue collection. As the legislative history of the law discloses, its underlying purpose was to curtail, if not prohibit, transactions in [certain] firearms. Congress found these firearms to pose a significant crime problem because of their frequent use in crime, particularly the gangland crimes of that era such as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre."
Today, of course, we can't have any more federal gun regulations. Too many people feel that the Second Amendment gives them the absolute freedom to have as many guns, as many rounds of ammunition, and as many pieces of body armor as they want. Many people feel that there should be no licensing of firearm owners, no registration of guns, and no background checks. Many people tell us that the only solution to mass shootings is for every citizen to be armed, at all times - the so-called "good-guy-with-a-gun-will-stop-the-bad-guy-with-a-gun" philosophy. In other words, a return to the mythical old west.
(In this 2014 campaign commercial, Joni Ernst fires a gun to show voters she's worthy of Congress. It worked, she's now a U.S. senator. It's become standard practice for all conservative politicians to fire weapons - to prove that their tough and ready to shoot someone. YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3mG9fNOZp4.)
Second Amendment absolutism makes utterly no sense. For example, should I be allowed to have an anti-aircraft gun in my front yard? If not...why not? The Second Amendment says I have the right to bear arms. An anti-aircraft gun is an arm. I have no intent of harming anyone. Maybe I just want one to protect the country, and my property, from foreign fighter jets or our own government gone rogue. What about a destroyer? Since I'm allowed to buy a boat, and I have the right to bear arms, I
clearly should be allowed to have my own destroyer with guide missiles. I
promise to be the good guy with the destroyer, and stop the bad guy
with the destroyer
Some people will say, "You're being silly, the Founding Fathers never envisioned citizens having free access to anti-aircraft guns." But I would respond that they never envisioned private citizens stockpiling semi-automatic weapons, 500-round drum magazines, or body armor either. And they probably never envisioned people buying ammunition from the Internet like candy." And many gun right extremists really emphasize our need to be armed in case our government turns against us. So clearly this is further justification for allowing me to have an anti-aircraft gun and a destroyer. I mean, how else am I going to fight off a government-gone-bad? Let's be real here: I can't battle an F-16 with a shotgun. I need some serious equipment. A Gatling Gun at least!
To be candid, I have several firearms - most passed down from older relatives. I like target shooting and I also like the personal defense thing. But if laws were passed requiring me to be licensed, or placing reasonable restrictions on the amount of ammunition I could purchase at one time, or requiring that the guns be recorded on some sort of new national registry, I would have no problem with it. Some people feel that such laws would be a slippery slope and would eventually lead to a confiscation of all private firearms. But you can say that about any law, e.g., "Forcing me to register and insure my car will lead to my car being confiscated." Under this paranoid philosophy, we should really have no laws at all. Is that what we want? Anarchy? The complete absence of law because any law could, hypothetically speaking, lead to a dangerous place?
Well, apparently with guns, the answer is yes - we want anarchy. Let each private citizen be his own rule-maker with guns. What could possibly go wrong?
In the article I cited above--"Franklin Roosevelt: The Father of Gun Control"--the author discusses the inability of our country to institute new gun control legislation, but says "The Newtown massacre however may have changed all that." He was referring, of course, to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where 20 children and 6 adults were murdered by a single gunman. That was nearly three years ago, and we're no closer to common sense regulations than we were then. The recent mass shooting in Oregon, as well as many other mass shootings that have occurred since Newtown, unfortunately, won't make any difference either.
The gun industry, the gun lobby, and the people who want every citizen to be armed, won't stand for any restrictions on guns or ammunition. We could have a mass shooting of 700 people and it still wouldn't make a bit of difference. Too many people have decided that everyone should be armed to the teeth, ready to blast it out with the evildoers - and no effort should be made to disarm the evildoers because, "Hey, they'll just get guns illegally anyway!" And each mass shooting only strengthens their resolve to have more guns and more people armed. Mass shooting = more gun production to arm citizens = more weapons flooding the nation = more shootings = more guns needed to arm more citizens... and round and round we go. Make no mistake about it, it's cultural insanity. And it's definitely making some people who live in our secluded, gated communities (safely away from the carnage) very, very wealthy. And they love it - making us all gun-toting (and gun purchasing) "good guys" & "bad guys."
(In this 2015 video, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz shows voters that he loves guns and can cook bacon on a barrel. Millions of Americans want Cruz to be our next president. YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZGaJrd3x8.)
"More Americans have died from guns in
the United States since 1968 than on battlefields of all the wars in
American history."
-- Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, rated as "True" by Politifact, August 27, 2015
We need a New Deal for guns - a deal that restricts gun ownership to law-abiding citizens, and places reasonable limits on the amount of guns & ammunition one person can have. We also need to limit the amount of guns that gun manufacturers can produce - endless production will result in endless bloodbaths. We need better background checks, better technology (fingerprint-trigger technology), and better registries. These types of laws will not immediately keep guns out of the hands of criminals of course. It will take a long, long time for the laws to make a big difference, because the nation has been so lax on gun control for so many years - and has been flooded with so many weapons. But reasonable regulations now, will save lives years from now.
Outside of paranoia, Second Amendment extremism (distortion, really), and political campaign bribery, there is really no reason why we can't act more responsibly with our nation's weaponry.
Above: "Reconsideration of Time and Space," a lithograph on paper, by Grace Clements while she participated in the WPA's Federal Art Program, 1937. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: "Oyster Shuckers," an oil painting by Catherine M. Howell (1892-1975), created while she participated in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, ca. 1934. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: Oyster shuckers at work at Rock Point, Maryland, 1936. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: This 1941 photo shows piles of oyster shells outside a group of processing buildings at Rock Point, Maryland. The oyster business provided lots of jobs and food for America, but could also deplete resources. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers planted 8.2 million bushels of oysters. This type of work supported the oyster industry and also helped clean the bay (oysters are excellent water filters). The WPA workers in this photo are on the Chesapeake Bay, off Crisfield, Maryland, 1936. Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.
Above: In this short video from 2012, we see that the job of oyster shucking is not necessarily much different than it was in the 1930s (and earlier). Original YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYClxs6nQ9k.
