Four-Fifths of a Nation

(WPA poster, image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

In January of 1937, President Roosevelt famously said, “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”

A recent survey showed that “Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.”

As the U.S. moves further and further away from the New Deal, and towards more privatization, greater income inequality, and mindless budget-cutting, the “one-third of a nation” statement can now be adjusted to “I see four-fifths of a nation ill-employed, economically insecure, and abandoned.”

A New Deal for Museums

(Click images to enlarge)

When the Great Depression hit America, many museums struggled financially. Fortunately, the New Deal was there to help. 

(WPA poster advertising a museum exhibit, image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

“WPA workers assisted museums in the making of dioramas, models, maps, lantern slides, and other visual-aid devices for extension work in public schools. These workers also assisted museums in the rearrangement and modernization of exhibits, and in the creation of accurate miniature representation of scenes illustrating (for example) the use of garments, dwellings and implements by aborigines or prehistoric peoples. WPA clerical workers assisted in the classifying and indexing of art, archaeological, and historical materials” (Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43, 1946).

(A WPA-created exhibit of Civil War weapons, created for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, 1937. Image courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)  

“…the implementation of New Deal programs had a major influence on the course of museum history in the United States, especially within departments of anthropology where generations of collecting left scores of materials un-catalogued, uncared for, and largely forgotten” (Samuel Redman, “The Hearst Museum of Anthropology, the New Deal, and a Reassessment of the ‘Dark Age’ of the Museum in the United States,” Museum Anthropology, Vol. 34, Issue 1, pp. 43-55, 2011. See article abstract here.)

(A WPA poster advertising an American Indian exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)  

“The museum is indebted to the Works Projects Administration for the substantial contribution of WPA employees to the work of almost all departments” (from a 1942 Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, cited in Redman article above).

(Some structures built by the WPA are now used as museums, such as the McKissick Museum in South Carolina, originally a library. Image courtesy of the University of South Carolina.)

WPA workers also assisted museums by “building new exhibit spaces,” cataloging “new accessions,” organizing “information for curatorial publications,” and translating “foreign documents.” Furthermore, “Laborers from the CWA, WPA, and Civilian Conservation Corps contributed to archaeological projects in 24 states over the course of nine years…result(ing) in new collections for the Smithsonian as well as numerous other museums around the country” (Redman, see citation above).

(If you have an interest in archaeology, consider reading the book Shovel Ready: Archaeology and Roosevelt's New Deal for America. Click here for a book review of Shovel Ready.)     

Today, many museums have problems associated with older structures, outdated utility systems, and lack of staff. Today, there are 27 million Americans who would like a full-time job but can't find one, and young adults are having more problems finding work than just one year ago. Unfortunately, there is no WPA, no CCC, no NYA, etc. Our political "leaders" are way too busy cutting funding for cancer research, cutting funding to prevent & fight wildfires, and looking for ways to kick low-income children and low-income seniors off food assistance programs to be bothered with American history and mass un- and under-employment.

(The WPA frequently offered art classes to children, and then displayed the children's art at museums. The clipping above is from the Baltimore Sun, September 25, 1938.)  

The foolishness and cruelty of austerity

"Ultimately austerity has failed because it is unsupported by sound logic or data. It is an economic ideology. It stems from the belief that small government and free markets are always better than state intervention. It is a socially constructed myth--a convenient belief among politicians taken advantage of by those who have a vested interest in shrinking the role of the state, in privatizing social welfare systems for personal gain. It does great harm--punishing the most vulnerable, rather than those who caused this recession."

--David Stuckler (Senior Research Leader, Oxford University) & Sanjay Basu (Epidemiologist, Stanford University), in The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills. New York: Basic Books, 2013.  

The WPA and Zoos

Did you know that the WPA helped create, repair, and improve zoos? Additionally, WPA workers painted posters encouraging people to visit zoos, and even wrote a book about the zoo, "Who's Who In The Zoo." (Images below are courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

"Every time I go over to Central Park, I walk into the Children's Zoo. This was built during the Depression by WPA workers. It's an absolutely lovely place. I go into the park often. And I cannot help remembering--look, this came out of the Depression. Because men were out of work, because they were given a way to earn money, good things were created."

--Herman Shumlin, Broadway producer and director, in Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression (Studs Terkel, 1970).
 

American Indians, Alaska Natives, and the New Deal

(A WPA poster advertising an exhibition of American Indian art. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

The New Deal had a tremendous impact on American Indians and Alaska Natives. For example, the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, sometimes called the "Indian New Deal," halted the loss of tribal land (for more information, see here and here).

Tens of thousands of American Indians and Alaska Natives found jobs in the WPA and CCC, often on their own reservations or ancestral lands. During the first six years of the CCC's existence "77,000 Indians had obtained work in the Indian Division. Accomplishments included developing 6,200 springs or small reservoirs, digging 1,350 wells, constructing 1,064 impounding dams and large reservoirs, and building 896 vehicle bridges, 51 stock bridges, 7,000 miles of truck trails, 2,500 miles of firebreaks, and 6,300 miles of telephone lines." When the CCC program was terminated in 1942, U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier wrote, "The ending of CCC...is a heavy, heavy blow...to the Indians, and to social policy in the United States." (Calvin W. Gower, "The CCC Indian Division: Aid for Depressed Americans," Minnesota History, Spring 1972, available for viewing here.)

(Alaska Natives in the CCC, restoring old totem poles. Image courtesy of the National Park Service and the National Archives.)

The WPA helped find and preserve American Indian history through narratives and archaeological excavations. At least two New Deal buildings are used today to display American Indian artifacts (see here and here).   

(WPA workers assisting in an archaeological excavation near Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana. The photo's description reads, "From this site, archaeologists are unearthing evidence of an Indian culture which they believe is the oldest yet discovered in the Mississippi Valley. Image courtesy of the New Orleans Public Library.) 

(WPA poster displaying a Navajo drawing, and promoting the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

Considering the poverty that exists in many Indian and Alaskan communities, a new New Deal would be helpful. Unfortunately, Republican politicians across the country are more concerned with lowering the minimum wage, cutting off food assistance to low-income Americans, blocking job programs for unemployed veterans, barring low-income Americans from preventative health care, getting rid of Social Security, prohibiting Americans from having protections against corporate greed & crime, and making the poor pee in cups to prove they're not drug addicts. Thus, a new New Deal to lift up our fellow citizens, and our Indian & Alaskan neighbors, just isn't in the cards. What a shame.  

The Civilian Conservation Corps Opened Worlds

"To me, the experience in the CCC was the opening of my world, which, until that time had been limited and poor in so many ways. My parents died when I was six and (my) grandparents raised me and died not too many months before I went into the CCC. The camp life not only helped me physically but also psychologically. What a wonderful opportunity and blessing it was for young men in those lean years."

--Walter L. Mallory, CCC Alumni, in the book "Roosevelt's Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps," by Perry H. Merrill, 1981.

Today, unfortunately, we don't have a Civilian Conservation Corps. We do, however, have the largest prison-industrial complex in the world--endless rows of prison cells waiting for our disadvantaged youth.

The Reverse New Deal: Letting our forests burn to balance the budget

(Above: A wildfire near Idyllwild, California that has caused thousands of evacuations, burned up thousands of acres of natural areas, and hurt businesses that rely on vacation & tourism dollars. See Idyllwild Fire In Southern California Mountain Grows. Original YouTube video link here.)

During the Great Depression, new deal work & construction programs (mainly the CCC & WPA) built thousands of miles of firebreaks, removed dead trees & vegetation, built roads to access remote areas (improving fire response), fought fires directly, and much more.

In other words, threats to our natural areas and the problem of unemployment were addressed simultaneously during the New Deal era.

During the current Great Recession, on the other hand, the unemployed are scolded and told that their salvation lies in low-wage McJobs with stingy--if any--benefits, and huge record-setting wildfires are burning across the country. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, Congress has cut the budget of federal firefighting agencies (see here and here).

Welcome to the Reverse New Deal: Where the big banks are making record profits after a taxpayer bailout, but we have to let our forests burn to balance the budget, and Congress turns its nose up at the unemployed (in September of 2012, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have created a new CCC-type program for unemployed veterans).