The NYA created many new opportunities for African Americans

Above: In this 1942 photograph, we see a young man in the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA) working as a lab assistant at the Frederiksted Municipal Hospital, Virgin Islands. The Final Report of the National Youth Administration notes that "From the time of its establishment, NYA pursued the policy that no person was to be deprived because of race, creed, color, or national origin of any employment, position, work, compensation, or other benefits made possible under the program of the NYA" (p. 111). Hundreds of thousands of young African Americans found opportunities in the NYA. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

The National Youth Administration improved the lives of young Puerto Rican men and women

Above: The description for this photo (ca. 1939-1942) reads, "Not outside the safeguards of the NYA health program are the 175 resident workers of La Mona. The outstanding medical and dental men of Puerto Rico recently visited  La Mona aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Unalga; they brought with them an X-ray machine and gave complete physical examinations to all the boys." The young men you see above were part of a National Youth Administration (NYA) project to perform forestry work on Mona Island. The NYA provided thousand of jobs for young Puerto Rican men and women who were not enrolled in school. Photo provided courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photo (ca. 1939-1942) reads, "Waitress in University of Puerto Rico Student Restaurant Project." By providing work opportunities, the National Youth Administration helped many young Puerto Ricans finish high school or college. For example, during any given month of the 1940-1941 academic year, nearly 1,200 students participated in the NYA's student work program. Photo provided courtesy of the National Archives.

The New Deal's NYA greatly improved the lives of young Puerto Rican men and women. Today, the story is quite different. As U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has noted, many super-wealthy Americans want Puerto Rico to cut health care, close K-12 schools, and reduce its support for the University of Puerto Rico. Why? Because these super-wealthy Americans don't care about the health and education of young Puerto Ricans (or any young Americans). The misery of others means nothing to them, they just want more money. Living on $50 million per year is unacceptable to them - it has to be $75 million per year. And when they reach $75 million per year, that will become unacceptable - it will have to be $100 million per year. The New Deal ethos has been replaced with an ethos of insatiable and sociopathic greed - and young Puerto Ricans are suffering for it.

New Deal Art: "Pretzel Vendor"

Above: "Pretzel Vendor," a lithograph by Harry LeRoy Taskey (1892-1958), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1939. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal toys for children

Above: The description for this 1938 photo reads, "Girl shown with doll that was repaired on WPA doll repair project." The photo was taken in Washington, DC, and is provided courtesy of the National Archives.

Toys are a fun part of growing up. They also enhance the development of creativity, focus, and problem-solving skills. New Deal policymakers understood all this. So, they paid unemployed workers to make toys, or refurbish discarded toys, for underprivileged children. These types of work projects solved or addressed three matters: Unemployment, child development, and waste.

A 1935 report from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) noted the following: 

"In [public works] handicraft projects, over twenty-five hundred women were employed; while in handicraft classes, 3,203 women teachers conducted 43,250 classes attended by 1,058,205 women and girls. These handicraft groups made baskets and rugs, they wove, knitted and crocheted, they made toys for Christmas distribution to the children of relief families, sometimes fabricating them ingeniously out of cornshucks, pine needles, walnut shells, and gourds. Some very fine work was done in copper. Broken toys were collected and repaired in many states for Christmas distribution. Typical reports from Montana tell of the help of the Girl Scouts, the Rainbow Girls and Boy Scouts in collecting these old toys for renovation, and of money to buy Christmas candies donated by the Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis and Rotana clubs" (The Emergency Work Relief Program of the F.E.R.A., April 1, 1934 - July 1, 1935, p. 84).

   Above: The description for this 1938 photo reads, "Dolls are repaired by women workers on a WPA Doll Repair Project." Photo taken in Washington, DC, and provided courtesy of the National Archives.

New Deal dental clinics for children

Above: The description for this photograph reads, "Kanawha County, West Virginia - Dental Clinic showing the oral hygienist cleaning teeth of school children with an NYA worker in attendance." During the New Deal, health care workers & trainees were employed in public work programs--like the Works Progress Administration and National Youth Administration--and addressed the health care needs of non-wealthy Americans. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

According to the National Children's Oral Health Foundation (NCOHF), "Dental care is the most prevalent unmet health need of children in the United States," and "An estimated 16 million children in America have untreated tooth decay." The CDC adds, "Tooth decay (cavities) is one of the most common chronic conditions of childhood in the United States. Untreated tooth decay can cause pain and infections that may lead to problems with eating, speaking, playing, and learning."

America should be increasing the amount of  dental care it provides to children (and adults too), not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because it's the economically smart thing to do. As the NCOHF points out, "For every $1 spent on oral health preventive measures, American taxpayers are saved as much as $50 in restorative and emergency procedures for the under and uninsured." In other words, as the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unfortunately, the political right has brutally, callously, and falsely labeled low-income Americans as "takers," thereby turning Americans against one another. This foolishness contributes to children having unmet dental care needs, and also ends up costing us more money in the long run.

During the New Deal, the WPA operated dental clinics all across the nation. For example, "in some rural areas the WPA operated mobile dental clinics, staffed with a dentist, nurse, and clerk, that went in trailers from school to school" (Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43, p. 69). New Deal policymakers saw this as a way to get unemployed health care professionals back to work, while at the same time addressing a very important, unmet need. Today, few of our policymakers possess this sort of common sense.

Above: WPA poster, image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

New Deal Art: Boatbuilders' Houses, St. Johns, Virgin Islands

Above: This watercolor and pencil painting was created by Mitchell Jamieson (1915-1976), while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1936. Jamieson went on to become a very successful artist and served our nation in a number of capacities. An interesting (and also tragic) biography of him can be found here. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Making America Safe: The New Deal's elimination of hundreds of grade-crossings

Above: The description for this photo (ca. 1935-1943) reads, "Completed Works Program grade-crossing [elimination] structure under the Pennsylvania Railroad at Minnesota Avenue, Washington, D.C." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: An oil painting by an unknown WPA artist in Iowa, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: This bridge in Nashville, Tennessee--funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA)--eliminated a dangerous grade-crossing. Photo from the 1936 book, The Story of PWA in Pictures.

A grade-crossing is a point where a railroad line and a vehicle road meet. Grade-crossings impede the flow of traffic, and are also dangerous. New Deal policymakers facilitated the elimination of hundreds of grade-crossings across America. In 1939, for example, it was reported that the PWA had "aided in eliminating one of the Nation's greatest menaces - the railway grade crossing. Under the $400,000,000 statutory allocation of PWA funds to the Bureau of Public Roads for highways, 492 grade separations were built. In addition, communities and States have applied for PWA aid for 40 projects costing $36,292,483 to eliminate 117 additional death traps" (America Builds: The Record of PWA, p. 188).

Other types of dangerous crossings were also eliminated by New Deal work programs. For example, the following was reported by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in 1935: "a pedestrian underpass in Davenport [Iowa]... now connects a large school, attended by several hundred children, with a park containing a zoo, playground and picnic facilities; formerly, it was necessary for children and others to climb a grade-embankment twenty-five feet high and cross the railroad tracks to get from one side to the other" (The Emergency Work Relief Program of the F.E.R.A., April 1, 1934 - July 1, 1935, p. 41).

And make no mistake about it, grade-crossings can be extremely dangerous. On April 11, 1935, for example, 14 high school students were killed when a train hit a bus in Rockville, Maryland. "President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke out the next day, pledging up to $200 million for eliminating dangerous railroad crossings throughout the United States, including the fatal one at Rockville in Montgomery County."  ("After 60 years, small town's tragedy remains vivid 'This Was Our Worst Day,'" Baltimore Sun, April 9, 1995).      

Above: In this ABC News video from 2015, we see that grade crossings are still a deadly problem today. Unfortunately, we don't have a New Deal to eliminate these remaining threats. Tax-breaks-for-the-wealthy and endless military adventures have been judged to be more important than addressing our infrastructure problems - problems that include not only dangerous grade-crossings, but also sewage spilling into waterways and making people sick; children drinking leaded water; dams failing during heavy storms; hundreds of thousands of water main breaks; and substandard roads that contribute to thousands of highway deaths every year. YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOsZexohjgw.

New Deal Art: "Old Willows"

Above: "Old Willows," a lithograph by Louis Lozowick (1892-1973), created while he was in the WPA art program, 1940. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.