A New Deal for the Performing Arts: 1,121 new or improved bandshells and outdoor theatres

Above: The Castle Amphitheater in Provo, Utah, built by WPA workers, 1936-1937. Photo by Richard Walker, Creative Commons, 2019.

During the New Deal, the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) constructed 56 new "open-air theatres and amphitheatres" (and improved 26 others). Young Americans in the National Youth Administration built--or created additions to--276 "bandstands, bandshells, and outdoor theaters" (and repaired or improved 291 others). Meanwhile, WPA workers built 366 new bandshells and outdoor theatres (and reconstructed or improved 106 more). (Statistics from the final reports of each agency.)

These 1,121 projects only tell part of the story, however, because other New Deal agencies created such facilities too, for example, the Civilian Conservation Corps and, most probably, the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (unfortunately, New Deal statistics are not always well-documented or easily-accessible).

Considering all these New Deal facilities for the performing arts; and the thousands of performances given by the WPA's Federal Theatre Project, Federal Dance Project, and Federal Music Project; and also the many work-relief jobs offered to stage designers, lighting technicians, directors, actors, musicians, circus performers, etc., the New Deal was truly a revolutionary era in the history of the performing arts. It was a creative era that was of, by, and for the people - much more participatory than our modern art and entertainment culture.

Above: The outdoor theatre at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, created with the assistance of WPA and CCC workers. This photo is from a 1939 program for the The Lost Colony play (which can still be seen at Fort Raleigh today), courtesy of the National Archives.

New Deal Art: "Dehousing"

Above: "Dehousing," a lithograph by David Burke, created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

New Deal Art: "Machine Fodder"

Above: "Machine Fodder," an artwork by Carl Hoeckner, created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1938. Hoeckner was born in Munich, Germany, in 1883, and died in Berkeley, California, in 1972. In 1939, the Artists' Union of Chicago proposed to add public art to Chicago's subway, and Hoeckner helped lead the effort: "Carl Hoeckner, easel painter and president of the union, and Edward Miller, muralist and chairman of the union's public use of art committee, pointed out that the New York City council had decided to shatter the gloom of underworld transportation with federal arts decorations in the new city owned subway." For Chicago's subway, the artists imagined "pony express riders and airplanes carrying the mail, workers swinging hammers in rhythm with the machine age, a group of nudes weaving a daisy chain, or perhaps a fawn drinking from a pool." ("Artists Propose To Light Gloom Of Our Subway," Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1939, p. 31). Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The progressive Squad of Four are the embodiment FDR's Four Freedoms, and they should fight the weak-kneed Pelosi Democrats every chance they get

Freedom of Expression - 

Above: Congresswoman Rashid Tlaib (D-Mich.) once said of Donald Trump, "We're going to impeach the motherfu&ker," and then refused to apologize. Because of that, she represent's FDR's "Freedom of Expression." Public domain photo, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Freedom of Religion - 

Above: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), is one of only two Muslim women to serve in Congress. For that, she represents FDR's "Freedom of Religion." Public domain photo, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Freedom from Want - 

Above: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) represents FDR's "Freedom from Want" because no member of Congress understands and highlights the struggles of the working class and poor better than she does. Public domain photo, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Freedom from Fear - 

Above: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) handles the death threats she receives with courage, saying: "Yes, I have experienced my share of death threats. I see it as par for the course, and consequential to the ways in which I legislate and govern, which many consider to be disruptive. When you have an administration that is fanning the flames of misogyny and xenophobia and white supremacy, someone like me---who looks like me, who leads like me, who talks like me--my very existence is the resistance. There are people that are offended just that I show up. Just that I exist." Pressley is also opposed to prioritizing military adventures over domestic needs (which gets to the heart of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms). For all of the above, Pressley is the embodiment of FDR's "Freedom from Fear." Public domain photo, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Above: A WPA poster of FDR's Four Freedoms, 1941. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The Four Freedoms Speech

On January 6, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt said:

"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants--everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb."

The progressive Squad of Four vs. the lip-service, center-right, and Republican-appeasing Pelosi Democrats

Nancy Pelosi has never liked the Squad of Four, and now she's really pissed, because AOC's spokesman recently said that the "greatest threat to mankind" is the "cowardice of the Democratic Party."

But here's the deal: He's right. It's the cowardice of the modern Democratic Party that has delivered us into the hands of Trump and his empathy-free Fox News base. By always compromising and caving to Republicans, and by routinely squashing bold ideas for the common good, they have demoralized much of the electorate and have facilitated growing social unrest. And that social unrest has brought us the demagogue Trump.

And if the Pelosi Democrats get their way, Joe Biden will win the Democratic nomination for president. And if Lyin' J'Biden wins the Oval Office, his center-right policies will cause even more social unrest (Biden has backed tax cuts for the rich; job outsourcing; debt-relief restrictions on the middle-class & poor; bailouts for law-breaking financial institutions; and cuts to Social Security & Medicare).

The progressive Squad of Four should fight the Pelosi Democrats every chance they get.

The incredible lithographs of Mabel Wellington Jack

The following 5 lithographs were created by Mabel Wellington Jack, while she was in the WPA...

Above: "Speedboat," 1937. Image courtesy of Jon Bolton and the Racine Art Museum, used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Above: "Scoring," 1939. Image courtesy of the Newark Museum.

Above: "Swan Dive," ca. 1935. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Above: "The Tender," 1936. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Above: "Coal Hopper at 14th Street," 1938. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: Mabel Wellington Jack's signature, from her "Swan Dive" lithograph (and which can be seen on her other artworks too). The life story of Mabel Wellington Jack seems to have been lost in history; there's doesn't appear to be much information about her on the Internet or in newspaper archives. She lived from about 1899 to 1970 or 1975. Her "Swan Dive" lithograph is mentioned in the book Women, Art and the New Deal (Katherine H. Adams and Michael L. Keene, 2015): "This symbolism of freedom through sports, representative of a new world into which women were propelling themselves also occurred in depictions of diving. In Swan Dive, Federal Art Project artist Mabel Wellington Jack used lithography to produce a stunning chiaroscuro image [an image with a strong contrast between light and dark] of a diver in mid-flight..." (p. 54).

New Deal Art: "Rope Skipper"

Above: "Rope Skipper," a wood engraving print by Burton Freund (1915-1968), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. Freund once said, "My desire is to capture and hold the excitement of a moment in movement..." Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.