New Deal Garages, Hangars, and Warehouses. Places to put our stuff.

Above: A WPA-built garage at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland. Photo by Brent McKee, 2011.

Above: A WPA-built airplane hangar, in Grand Island, Nebraska, July 1937. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: A warehouse in Stockton, California, funded by the New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA), ca. 1935-1940. This is probably the warehouse referred to in the PWA publication America Builds (1939), where it is reported: "The city of Stockton, Calif., received an allotment to help build a $60,000 cotton warehouse, to be leased to the Port Authority to afford adequate facilities for handling, warehousing, baling and shipping of California's long staple cotton. The project is of benefit to farmers and pickers in the State and is scheduled to pay for itself in 20 years" (p. 204). Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: "Warehouses," an oil painting by Haldane Douglas (1893-1980), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), ca. 1933-1934. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Between 1933 and 1943, the New Deal gave us plenty of places to put our stuff. For example, WPA workers built 2,500 new garages, 2,300 new storage buildings, and 244 new airplane hangars. In our state & national parks & forests, the CCC built 2,484 new garages. And the PWA funded warehouses and garages all across the nation for various state & local needs (police, prisons, hospitals, docks, etc.).

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (10/10): "Basketball"

Above: "Basketball," a color lithograph by Joseph Vogel (1911-1995), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1939. Joseph Vogel felt that the federal government should have a strong role in the arts. In 1965, he said he wanted the government to be "a midwife, so to speak, in bringing art to the public," and he felt that the federal government should help improve America's unsightly, modern public spaces: "our cities are horrors... I don't mind government participation, government taking the lead, taking the initiative to responsibility. It is its responsibility... I traveled from here across a number of states and what I saw makes me believe that the public generally should have its eyes and ears protected from such sights of ugliness" ("Oral history interview with Joseph Vogel, 1965 Jan. 5," Smithsonian Archives of American Art). On the topic of our boring, modern public places, see my blog post, "The Reverse New Deal: Selling our public spaces, repressing our creativity, and transforming ourselves into low-paid corporate automatons for the 0.1%." Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (9/10): Boxing Art (also, WPA boxing during the New Deal years)

Above: "Champion Defeat," a watercolor painting by George Schreiber (1904-1977), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1934. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Museum of the City of New York.

Above: A close-up of the unruly crowd in Schreiber's "Champion's Defeat."

Above: "Right Hook," an artwork by Dayton Brandfield (1911-1993), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1939. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Ackland Art Museum.

Above: "The Set Up," a lithograph by John W. Beauchamp (1906-1957), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Gibbes Museum of Art.

Above: "Down and Out," a painting by Barnett Braverman (1888-?), while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1937. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Genessee Valley Council on the Arts.

Above: A WPA poster, advertising an event for the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA). Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

WPA Boxing 

Boxing was very popular during the 1930s, and the WPA catered to this interest by offering boxing lessons and boxing tournaments. For example, in the November 7th, 1940 edition of The News newspaper (Paterson, New Jersey), the following was advertised: "In conjunction with the county WPA Recreation program, boxing lessons are given each Tuesday at the Pompton Lakes High School by Paul Cavalier, former heavyweight" (for boxing fans, see Paul Cavalier's biography on the website of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame).

In the January 5th, 1937 edition of the Daily Clintonian (Clinton, Indiana), we read: "Clinton's WPA amateur boxing team is scheduled for another match Friday, January 15, recreation officials announced today. The Washington Panthers will appear here at the Coliseum for a seven-bout evening of pugilistic entertainment" ("WPA Boxers to Meet Panthers").

These types of stories are all throughout newspaper archives, and speak to the popularity of boxing at the time, as well as the prevalence of WPA recreation activities related to the sport.

Boxing can be brutal; however, when taught in conjunction with good sportsmanship (which seems to be lacking in many fighting sports today), and when appropriate head gear is used (as we see in Golden Gloves and Olympic boxing), and with limited rounds (3-5?), perhaps there is something to be said for its physical fitness qualities and its cathartic release of aggression.

Above: A group of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) boxers in California, 1933. When not performing their forestry work, CCC enrollees could participate in a variety of recreation programs. Interestingly, WPA boxers sometimes fought CCC boxers (see, for example, "WPA Boxers Top CCC in Minooka," The Scranton Republican (Scranton, Pennsylvania), May 9, 1936. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (8/10): "Card Game" by Basil Hawkins

Above: "Card Game," a lithograph by Basil G. Hawkins (1903-1980), created while he was in the WPA, 1939. Hawkins was a graduate of the Flint Institute of Art in Flint, Michigan, and "was known as one of Michigan's leading artists" before moving to Arizona ("Basil Hawkins," The Arizona Republic, September 13, 1980). Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Above: There is not a lot of information about Basil Hawkins on the Internet or in newspaper archives, but his name is mentioned in several Arizona newspapers in relation to art shows, and it seems Hawkins also worked for a stone-making business. The description for the photo above (which I think shows the Hawkins who worked in the WPA) reads, "Basil Hawkins, designer for Grand Canyon Cast Stone, removes rubber mould of flagstone design for use in machine making blocks with flagstone faces" ("New Cast Flagstone Developed," The Arizona Republic, March 16, 1953). The basic idea behind this new stonework was to pour colored concrete into rubber moulds, creating a flagstone-type design. Photo by E.D. Newcomer, Republic Photos, used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Above: Interestingly, Hawkins made a self-portrait lithograph while he was in the WPA, and so we can compare this self-portrait, where he would have been 36 years-old, to the photo in the Arizona Republic, where he would have been 50 years-old. It seems the Hawkins in the Arizona Republic photo is indeed the same Hawkins who created "Card Game" and many other WPA artworks. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Above: In his obituary (see the caption for the first image of this blog post), Hawkins is said to have lived at 1826 E. Pleasant Lane. This is 1826 E. Pleasant Lane in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2018. Notice the flagstone work on the front of the house. Considering that Hawkins worked for a flagstone-replica business, and assuming that this is the same house he lived in, could he have done the stonework we see here? In the Arizona Republic article cited in the second image above, it is reported that "Artistic flagstone work is now within reach of the average homeowner who wants to build a barbecue pit, patio wall, or add decorative touches to his home." Image courtesy of Google Streetview, used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Above: A closer view of the stonework, from the Google Streetview image above.

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (7/10): "Slope"

Above: "Slope," a watercolor painting by Thomas S. Baker (1907-1986), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1938. According to his obituary, Baker was an expert skier, served in the Navy during World War II, and had a successful post-war career as an artist, and also as a business executive in the printing industry ("Thomas Baker, 78, water colorist," The Boston Globe, May 7, 1986). As with so many other artists, it seems that the New Deal provided Baker with the sustenance and hope he needed to continue his craft during the tough times of the 1930s, and beyond. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (6/10): "A Stick Race"

Above: "A Stick Race," a water color painting by Jose Rey Toledo (1915-1994), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1940. Toledo taught art at several schools and colleges, including the University of New Mexico. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: "The Bow and Arrow Dance," another WPA painting by Toledo, 1940. Toledo was "an Indian artist who captured the essence of tribal dances on canvas and was a cultural traditionalist and environmentalist" ("Jose Rey Toledo, Indian Painter, 78," New York Times, April 9, 1994). Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the University of Arizona Museum of Art.

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (5/10): Women

Above: A scene from "Modern Florida," an artwork by Eduard Buk Ulreich (1889-1966), created while he was in the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts, ca. 1939-1943. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: Another scene from Ulreich's "Modern Florida."

Above: A WPA poster promoting hiking, created by artist Shari Weisberg. Little or no information seems to exist about Weisberg, but she may have been the daughter of Harry Weisberg (1867-1920) and Clara Weisberg (1877-1936), Jewish immigrants from Russia. In an obituary for Clara, her daughter Shari is shown to be living in Chicago, and the above poster was created as part of the WPA's Federal Art Project in Illinois, ca. 1936-1939 ("Mrs. Clara Weisberg," Wausau Daily Herald (Wausau, Wisconsin), July 20, 1936, p. 4). Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Above: A WPA poster created for the Food and Drug Administration, by an unknown artist in Ohio, 1940. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Above: A scene from "Contemporary Justice and Woman," a mural by Emil Bisttram (1895-1976), created while he was in the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts, ca. 1936. This mural is located in the Department of Justice Building in Washington, DC. Image courtesy of Carol M. Highsmith and the Library of Congress.

Above: "Girl with Roller Skates," a sculpture by Nathaniel Kaz (1917-2010), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Brooklyn Museum.

Above: A woman volleyball player from the WPA poster, "Athletics." "Hazlett" seems to be the last name of the artist of this poster, but I can find no other information. More than a few New Deal artists have been lost in time, with little or no trace of them in Internet resources like Find-a-Grave, repository websites, online newspaper archives, or general Google searches. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (4/10): "Handball in Brooklyn"

Above: "Handball in Brooklyn," a lithograph by David Feinstein, created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. During the New Deal years, WPA workers built 1,817 new handball courts. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Above: A handball game in Greenbelt, Maryland, 1942. The New Deal's Resettlement Administration created the town of Greenbelt, and the WPA played a large role. Photo by Marjory Collins, taken while she was in the New Deal's Farm Security Administration, and provided courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Above: A newspaper report on a WPA-supported handball tournament (The Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania), August 11, 1937). The WPA built or improved thousands of recreation facilities across America, and supported tens of thousands of recreation activities (board games, sports, hiking, skating, crafts, etc). These projects & programs helped keep America fit - both mentally and physically. In modern times, the CDC has repeatedly warned us about rising rates of childhood and adult obesity; and we're now learning about the relationship between obesity and cancer (see, for example, "The disturbing links between too much weight and several types of cancer," Washington Post, April 14, 2019). In an educated world, we would look to the past and say, "Hey, let's do what the WPA did and get healthier!" But today, unfortunately, we have replaced historical learning with the cult of personality. And combine this cult of personality with sedentary tech activities--and also our bizarre preference to kneel before the wealthy (instead of funding the common good)--and you can expect America to get fatter, and fatter, and fatter. Image courtesy of Newspapers.com, part of a longer story, and used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

"Schools Cut Back Physical Education As Childhood Obesity Remains High"

--A typical headline in 21st century America, highlighting our cultural madness (this one from Wisconsin Public Radio, March 26, 2018). Yes, we'll even sacrifice the health of our children, if that's what it takes to serve Corporate America's lust for fat, unhealthy, obedient workers. Isn't that shameful?

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (3/10): "Thrill of the Game"

Above: "Thrill of the Game," a lithograph by Benton Spruance (1904-1967), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1933. Spruance was a prolific lithographer and, according to his obituary, "a pioneer in color lithography" ("Benton M. Spruance Is Dead At 63, Famed Artist, Lithographer," The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 7, 1967, emphasis added). Also, as a member of the Philadelphia Art Commission, Spruance successfully pushed for a 1959 law that mandated 1% of new construction costs be set aside for art in the new buildings (see previous reference, and also, "Benton Spruance," Spartacus Educational). Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Weatherspoon Art Museum.

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (2/10): "Athletics"

Above: "Athletics," a sculpture by Sargent Johnson (1888-1967), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1940-1942, and located at George Washington High School in San Francisco. Johnson gave much credit to the WPA for keeping him active in the arts, saying, "It's the best thing that ever happened to me because it gave me more of an incentive to keep on working, where at the time things looked pretty dreary and I thought about getting out of it because, you know, I come from a family of people who thought all artists were drunkards and everything else. I thought I'd given it up at one time but I think the WPA helped me to stay." Photo by Gray Brechin.

Above: A close-up of the baseball section of "Athletics."

Above: A close-up of the crew and diving sections of "Athletics."

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (1/10): "Athletes No. 1"

Above: "Athletes No. 1," a crayon lithograph by Richard V. Correll (1904-1990), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1938. According to the website richardvcorrell.com, Correll's time in the WPA "confirmed his decision to pursue art professionally, and gave him (and many other artists as well) an opportunity to earn their livings as fine artists, practicing [art] for the first, and sometimes the only time in their lives" [Correll went on to become a successful commercial artist, and continued creating fine art too]. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

The New Deal sparked a sanitation revolution

Above: The description for this photograph, taken in Carbon Hill, Alabama, September, 1937, reads, "Depicting old method of collecting sewerage before installation of modern disposal plant by WPA." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: The new, WPA-built sewage disposal plant in Carbon Hill, Alabama, 1937. Photo

courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: The New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funds for the construction of the Blue Plains Waste Disposal Plant, located in the southern part of Washington, DC, along the Potomac River. The original facility was completed in 1937. The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) notes that "Before 1937, wastewater flowed through the District in open sewers and discharged untreated to the nearest waterway." Image and quote from a DC Water information brochure, available at the facility.

Above: Today, the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant has grown into a sanitation metropolis, serving a much larger population and able to treat about 384 million gallons of wastewater per day - greatly reducing pollution into area waterways. Image and statistic from a DC Water information brochure, available at the facility.

Above: This is one of the original, PWA-funded buildings at the Blue Plains facility - a pumping station, still serving the nation's capital today. Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: A sculpture of the Seal of the District of Columbia, on the front of the pumping station. "Justitia Omnibus" is Latin, and means "Justice for All." Back in the day, you could actually decorate public buildings like this, and be creative; but today, this sort of activity is illegal (I'm only half-joking). Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: Even lamps were decorative back in those days. This is one of two on the front of the pumping station. Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: The inner workings of the pumping station, much of it original. Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: Original New Deal steel, in the subterranean bowels of the pumping station. Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: Another of the original PWA buildings at the Blue Plains facility. DC Water reports that its "in-house lab conducts more than 100,000 tests a year" to comply with wastewater treatment regulations (from an information brochure available at the facility). Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: A Blue Plains engineer, outside the PWA-funded (and since-then-expanded) laboratory building. Engineers like this guy are the great unsung heroes of our society, working hard every day to keep us, and the environment clean (and with little federal help - see below). Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

The New Deal sparked a sanitation revolution, which greatly reduced, and in some cases virtually eliminated sanitation-related diseases, for example, cholera, dysentery, and hookworm. Some of this New Deal work included: PWA-provided funds for hundreds of large-scale sewage projects across the nation, including the then-territories of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands; installation of 24,000 miles of new sewer lines by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) (enough sewer line work to encircle the planet); 800 garbage incinerators built or repaired by the National Youth Administration (NYA); and 12,000 new bathroom facilities in our state & national parks & forests, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

And we're still using many of these New Deal systems & structures today... almost universally oblivious to their origins.

And here's the thing: We're relying too much on past labor. The New Deal policymakers that gave us this great heritage of public works never envisioned that we would become so lackadaisical about our infrastructure. In their latest report card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave America's wastewater facilities a D+ letter grade, and highlighted pathetic federal investment. Even the Republican Party's state-run media empire knows there's a problem, reporting that poverty and substandard sanitation is bringing certain diseases back ("Life-threatening hookworm, believed eradicated from US, resurfaces in Alabama," Fox News, November 21, 2018).

We're also relying too much on state & local funding, which have evolved into highly regressive revenue systems (see, e.g., "Who Pays?" Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, October 2018). These state & local revenue streams (taxes, tolls, fees, fines, and utility bills) place a disproportionate burden on middle and low-income residents. For example, DC Water notes that "Customers bear the bulk of the costs [of the facilities' environmental protections]. DC Water has received limited federal funding for environmental projects under construction at Blue Plains, but their ultimate cost is nearly $4 billion" (from the DC Water information brochure noted in the photo captions above, emphasis added). In other words, as the super-wealthy keep adding billions to their already-record fortunes, thanks to persistent federal tax-cuts-for-the-rich, state & local authorities must keep asking middle and low-income residents for more... and more... and more.

The fact is, we need another New Deal for our sanitation and environmental protection needs. But that's not happening; instead, our regressive revenue burden just keeps getting heavier under trickle-down, coddle-the-wealthy, neoliberal economics.   

Above: A WPA poster, promoting modern WPA-built outhouses, or "sanitary privies." Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers built 2.3 million privies. These privies helped reduce disease and illness in rural communities. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

WPA poster art: Books of all sizes

Above: A WPA poster, promoting books, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

WPA poster art: Balanced meals, low cost

Above: A WPA poster, promoting nutritious and affordable meals, ca. 1941-1943. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.