200 West Virginia footbridges, built by the National Youth Administration

Above: Photo and caption from Betty and Ernest K. Lindley, A New Deal for Youth: The Story of the National Youth Administration, New York: The Viking Press, 1938, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

NYA forgotten

In the Final Report of the National Youth Administration, Fiscal Years 1936-1943 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944), we learn that "Bridge construction and bridge repair were usual projects" of the NYA (p. 137), and that the NYA built, repaired, or improved about 10,000 bridges in total (p. 140).

In the caption in the photo above, we see that the NYA built 200 footbridges in West Virginia, made partially out of steel pipe, in order to help children get to school on days when streams and creeks were running high. Though information about these bridges is quite scarce, photos on the website Bridgemeister indicate that at least some of the NYA footbridges might still exist. See, for example, the information and photos: "Atwell Suspension Footbridge," "Beatrice Suspension Footbridge," and "Big Run Suspension Footbridge."

Many of the infrastructure projects of the New Deal have been forgotten, or taken for granted. This seems to be especially true for the West Virginia footbridges built by the NYA. But the footbridges are nevertheless a symbol of the New Deal's problem-solving prowess. Instead of endlessly pontificating about budgetary issues, or hysterically whining about "socialism," "communism," and "the end of our freedom!" or other such nonsense--as so many Americans do today--the New Deal simply saw a problem (schoolchildren unable to cross high water), fixed it (with footbridges), and moved on to the next item of business.