Above: WPA sewing room workers in New York City, between 1935 and 1943. Across the country, WPA workers created 382 million articles of clothing for low-income Americans. They also made tens of thousands of other items, such as curtains, sheets, dolls, flags, and military items. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.
Above: A WPA sewing room project in Washington, DC, April 1938. Notice that the sewing desks are more individualized. But... what happened to all the WPA sewing machines & desks after the WPA was discontinued? Photo courtesy of the National Archives.
Above: Part of a longer newspaper article about the stalled fate of a large batch of WPA sewing machines. From The Des Moines Register, March 21, 1943, p. 38. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Where did the WPA sewing machines & desks go?
As the WPA neared its end, there was a lot of equipment to manage and find a home for. Many sewing machines (most or all of which were Singer brand) and desks ended up in private industry, especially the defense industry. But what about after the war? And what about those that didn't end up in the defense industry? Where did they go?
A review of newspaper archives shows that WPA sewing machines and desks had varied, interesting, and sometimes odd fates. Some were sold off to private citizens, for example, in 1948, the city of Waco, Texas, held an auction and one winner was "Lawrence E. Lynn... who bid $45 on six machines," about $562 in 2022 dollars ("Net Profit On Ex-WPA Sewing Machines Here," The Waco Times-Herald, May 20, 1948, p. 1).
In December 1942, sewing machines that had been used by the WPA in Indiana were sent to North Africa to support the U.S. armed forces there ("WPA Sewing Machines On Way To N. Africa," The Franklin Evening Star (Franklin, Indiana), December 14, 1942, p. 4).
5,000 WPA sewing machines apparently ended up in Brazil, for reasons not altogether clear ("Another Rosy Dream Goes 'Boom'," Shawnee News-Star (Shawnee, Oklahoma), March 21, 1944. p 4).
The Red Cross repaired broken WPA sewing machines and sent them abroad, presumably to distressed communities ("Red Cross Has Quota Of $7,000 For Funds Drive," The Lock Haven Express (Lock Haven, Pennsylvania), February 6, 1948, p. 1).
Some WPA sewing machines were destroyed. For example, in an article about a sewing machine repairman, "He says his biggest disappointment in business was when he had an opportunity to buy 800 WPA project sewing machines in Indianapolis and arrived with the money an hour after the warehouse where they were stored had burned" ("Women Flock to Argos Man, Now 70; He's the Sewing Machine Repairman," The Indianapolis Star, November 12, 1944, p. 57).
Complete WPA sewing machines and desks seem rare today, especially ones with metal "WPA" tags on them. This author has seen only one. No doubt there are at least a few more, perhaps scattered across the globe without identifying tags, and thus with owners unaware of their machines's history of social welfare and the common good.
Above: An interesting sewing needle book, promoting FDR and the New Deal. Photo by Brent McKee. Unknown artist.
Above: A closer view of the middle graphic of the sewing needle book. Photo by Brent McKee. Unknown artist.
Above: Inside the sewing needle book. Photo by Brent McKee.
It's a sin that there's not a New Deal Museum. This country just doesn't respect it's history.
ReplyDeleteA sewing needle book's purpose is to hold one's needles? No story of any kind contained within?
ReplyDelete