New Deal Art: "Blast Furnace"

Above: "Blast Furnace," a lithograph by Elizabeth Olds (1896-1991), created while she was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1938. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The New Deal believed in science. Today, 80 years later, Republicans don't.

Above: The description for this WPA photo, taken between 1935 and 1943, reads, "Making a study of ultra violet rays in the study of air pollution in New York City." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

President Roosevelt and his fellow New Deal policymakers funded thousands of science projects all across the country - environmental science, social science, and medical science. In modern America, however, Republican politicians and their wealthy donors are busy defunding and denying science, for example, trying to cut funding for the EPA, cut funding for the National Institute of Health, and loosen or terminate any recent rules that were designed to protect our air and water.

At a recent conference hosted by the right-wing "Heartland Institute" (I guess the name "God, Mom, and Apple Pie Institute" was already taken), and attended by right-wing billionaire donors Robert Mercer and Rebekah Mercer, various speakers blabbered various things to reinforce each other's psychosis, for example, that fossil fuels and rising temperatures are needed to avoid starvation; that the government is engaging in "perverted science"; that there is "no such thing as climate science"; and "There isn't a consensus [humans are causing climate change]. The people who did the survey reported it as 97 percent because they were communists and they didn’t care about the truth." Yep, it was the commies! It's always the commies.

Above: In this brief video clip from BBC News (showing fossil fuel-caused pollution in China in January 2017), we see America's future if Republicans, their super-wealthy donors, and their voters have their way. In fact, it's already begun. Doctors in Utah, one of the most polluted states in America in terms of air quality, have been warning pregnant women to stay indoors for several years now. Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nFZaSbkf0U.

Above: In this 2015 video clip from Denver 7 news, we see that some people have rigged their vehicles to pollute more. It's called "rolling coal," and it's being done to protest clean air. Some of the people who do this intentionally try to "smoke out" people who don't share their political views, such as "BlackLivesMatter, Trump Haters, Tree Huggers." Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaDqgtFAC40.

Isn't it amazing how we're devolving as a society? How we respect science less than we did 80 years ago? And how we're slowly but surely rejecting higher learning in favor of talking points and slavish devotion to the rich? Because remember, it isn't just the knuckle-dragging policies of Republican politicians and their super-wealthy donors. It's also the tens of millions of voters who are saying, "Yes, yes! I believe you! Science is a hoax! The billionaires are our gods, we MUST obey them! Hallelujah!!!"

Conservative voters have now placed climate-denying, air-polluting Republican politicians and billionaires in charge of most state governments, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the White House, and, soon, the Supreme Court. Indeed, right-wing politicians and billionaires have so much political control right now, that they're on the verge of being able to call a constitutional convention to rewrite the way we live. Who knows, maybe in a few years, you will be required to carry an assault rifle and a bible at all times; and also forced to drink contaminated water and wrap your mouth around the exhaust pipe of a "rolling coal" truck - to prove you're a genuine God-fearin', billionaire-lovin', low-paid American. Hell yeah!!!

Organizations like UNICEF, the American Lung Association, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have warned us that we are breathing highly polluted, lethal air - killing hundred of thousands of us every year (and children are especially susceptible). Unfortunately, as evidenced by their rallying cry "Drill Baby, Drill!", their "rolling coal" vehicles, and their ridicule of environmental protection laws, Republicans clearly don't give a crap. Even as we see children in China routinely wearing breathing masks, and surrounded by clouds of fossil fuel smog, Republicans just keep screaming, "It's a hoax!!"

New Deal Art: "The Plague"

Above: "The Plague," a woodcut by Adrian Troy (1901-1977), created while he was in the WPA's art program, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: A closer look at the people in the engraving, highlighting the range of expressions and emotions. The patient is in pain, the mother is grieving, the father is stunned, the doctor seems to be embarrassed or uncomfortable that he can't do more, and the first child in the loft appears to be irritated.

Above: A WPA poster promoting vaccination against Diphtheria. According to the World Health Organization, "Throughout history, Diphtheria has been one of most feared childhood diseases, characterized by devastating outbreaks... Transmission occurs through droplets and close physical contact. Although most infections are asymptomatic or run a relatively mild clinical course, many patients succumb to airway obstruction caused by laryngeal diphtheria or toxic myocarditis... Diphtheria vaccines are based on diphtheria toxoid, a modified bacterial toxin that induces protective antitoxin antibodies..." The CDC informs us that "Diphtheria once was a major cause of illness and death among children. The United States recorded 206,000 cases of diphtheria in 1921, resulting in 15,520 deaths. Starting in the 1920s, diphtheria rates dropped quickly due to the widespread use of vaccines." During the New Deal, "immunizations against diphtheria, typhoid fever, whooping cough, and other infectious diseases were widely administered in schools and clinics," as part of the overall WPA work program (Federal Works Agency, Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43, 1946, p. 69).

New Deal Art: "Finishing the Cathedral of Learning"

Above: "Finishing the Cathedral of Learning," an oil painting by Harry Scheuch (1906-1978), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1934. The Cathedral of Learning is part of the University of Pittsburgh campus. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: A closer look at the workers in the painting. The figures depict laborers from the New Deal's Civil Works Administration. Two exhibit labels describe the scene: "Workers scurry like busy ants to complete the University of Pittsburgh’s lofty Cathedral of Learning. The men and trucks trample the winter's snow into mud as they labor through the frigid winter of 1933-1934 to house much-needed new classrooms... Scheuch emphasized the dramatic scale of the cathedral against the tiny workers to show what can be achieved when people work together."

Above: A photo of the Cathedral of Learning, ca. 1933-1934, from the book, America Fights the Depression: A Photographic Record of the Civil Works Administration, New York: Coward McCann, 1934, p. 37. Used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

According to historian Kenneth J. Heineman, John Bowman, the chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, was a critic of the New Deal but, "Once Roosevelt established the Civil Works Administration in 1933 to provide temporary work to the unemployed, Bowman stood in line for federal aid" (Catholic New Deal: Religion and Reform in Depression Pittsburgh, Penn State University Press, 2005, p. 64). This is a phenomenon that we frequently see today too, where some people feel that government programs that help other people are "wasteful spending," but programs that help them are okay. And it's a phenomenon that work-relief administrator Harry Hopkins explained in his 1936 book Spending to Save: "There is a curious thing about these [New Deal] operations which have been dotting the landscape of the United States for the past three years. Although they are attacked constantly in newspapers, people who visit them report that workers, public officials and citizens alike exhibit strong pride in them. Derision is reserved for projects elsewhere that they have never seen" (p. 169).

New Deal Art: "Spring Plowing"

Above: "Spring Plowing," an oil painting by Helen Dickson, created while she was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, ca. 1933-1934. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "California Farm"

Above: "California Farm," a water color and pencil on paper by Alexander Nepote (1913-1986) created while he was in the New Deal's Treasury Section of Fine Arts, 1939. According to the Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery, Nepote was born in California's Central Valley and, after World War II, taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts and also at California State University in San Francisco. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Old Pennsylvania Farm in Winter"

Above: "Old Pennsylvania Farm in Winter," an oil painting by Arthur E. Cederquist (1884-1954), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), 1934. Cederquist was born, and also died, in Titusville, Pennsylvania and "his three paintings for the PWAP were all set in rural Pennsylvania." Image, information, and quote from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Sunbath"

Above: "Sunbath," a painting by Harold Black (1913-1993), created while he was in the WPA's art program, ca. 1941. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Inside A Lumber Mill"

Above: "Inside A Lumber Mill," a watercolor by Claire Falkenstein (1908-1997), created while she was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), 1934. Falkenstein graduated from the Anna Head School for Girls in Berkeley, California (today, the Head-Royce School in Oakland), and then earned an art degree from the University of California Berkeley in 1930 (see her biography at the Guggenheim Foundation). When she was in the PWAP she lived on Berkeley's Benvenue Avenue. Then, shortly after painting "Inside A Lumber Mill," it appears she created a fresco at Oakland's Piedmont High School, while in the WPA's Federal Art Project. But the current status of the fresco is unclear (see, for example, "Poppy Fresco for Piedmont High School, Oakland, California," Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco). After her time as a New Deal artist, Falkenstein went on to become a very prominent sculptress, and her art can be seen at many indoor and outdoor locations in California (see "Claire Falkenstein's strangely contradictory sculptures," Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2016). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.