FDR & a New Deal for America

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) Created May 1935 Most important federal employment program –employing avg. 2.3 million per month! –8.5 million different people employed overall –1.4 million projects funded Types of workers: manual laborers, authors, artists, photographers Types of work: built bridges, roads, parks, airfields, schools, hospitals, wrote & produced plays, made educating and advertising posters, documented slave narratives, photographed the Depression, etc.

WPA Success at UNITING America The economic crisis of the 1930s focused the attention of Americans on the lives and struggles of ordinary folk. Not surprisingly, much New Deal art reflected this preoccupation with "the people." Visual artists, writers, filmmakers, and playwrights concentrated many of their creative efforts on the patterns of everyday life, especially the world of work. A recurring theme was the strength and dignity of common men and women, even as they faced difficult circumstances.

WPA Success at UNITING America This helped to unite Americans in their understanding of the Depression, of the vastness of the land they occupied and needed, of the common concerns they had, and of the need for them to share the responsibility of citizenship that a democracy requires. With art, the WPA also provided a different kind of “relief” from the Depression – psychological.

Wall Hanging by WPA Handcraft Project, Milwaukee, Wisconsin By an unknown artist, Milwaukee Handcraft Project, WPA, ca Block-printed cloth Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO B)

New York : Federal Art Project, 1936 or 1937 Poster promoting better living conditions by keeping tenement neighborhoods clean. Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress)

New York : Federal Art Project, between 1936 and 1941 Poster promoting early treatment for syphilis, showing cured and sick men. Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress).

[1936 or 1937]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC- USZC

Handbills for Chicago, Illinois, production of Spirochete Illinois Federal Theatre Project, WPA, 1938 National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (Federal Theater Records, Vassar Collection of Programs and Promotional Materials, Box 156) A "Living Newspaper," Spirochete describes the history of humanity's struggle against venereal disease. Public health experts such as the Surgeon General assisted with the script's development and endorsed its proposed solution--nationwide premarital screening. The advertisement shown here emphasizes the play's position that prudery and ignorance only aided the spread of this scourge.

John Buczak. [1940]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC- USZC

Benjamin Sheer. [1936]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC- USZC Earl Schuler. [between 1936 and 1940]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC

I am a photographer hired by a democratic government to take pictures of its land and its people. The idea is to show New York to Texans and Texas to New York. --Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration photographer, U.S. Camera One, 1941.

Dorothea Lange CREATED/PUBLISHED 1935 June. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USZ DLC (b&w film copy neg. from file print) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Home of a dust bowl refugee in California. Imperial County. Dorothea Lange, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1937 Mar. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF C DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Russel Lee, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1942 Feb. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF D DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress

Dust storm. Oklahoma. Arthur Rothstein, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1936 Apr. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF E DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

The winds of the "dust bowl" have piled up large drifts of soil against this farmer's barn near Liberal, Kansas. Arthur Rothstein, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1936 Mar.

Dust storm. It was conditions of this sort which forced many farmers to abandon the area. Spring New Mexico. Dorothea Lange, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1935 Apr. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF E DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

"CCC Boys at Work" Prince George County, Virginia Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs ARC Identifier: ARC

WPA Sewing Shop, New York City National Archives and Records Administration Works Progress Administration Record Group 69 ARC Identifier: ARC

Unemployed Men Eating in Volunteers of America Soup Kitchen, Washington, D.C. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs ARC Identifier: ARC

"Stringing rural TVA transmission line." Rural Electrification Administration (REA) - Tennessee Valley Administration (TVA) Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs ARC Identifier: ARC

Figures Silhouetted Against a Backdrop of the Constitution, WPA: Federal Theater Project Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs ARC Identifier: ARC

In depicting the course of daily life, New Deal artists memorialized routine events such as waiting for a train or watching workers from a city window. Behind these celebrations of the mundane, however, lay a belief that such vignettes represented the essence of modern American life as lived by most individuals. Artists considered it to be their responsibility to capture such core experiences.

Michigan artist Alfred Castagne sketching WPA construction workers By an unknown photographer, May 19, 1939 National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (69-AG-410)

The Riveter By Ben Shahn, Treasury Section of Fine Arts, 1938 Tempera on paperboard National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, transfer from General Services Administration ( )

Working Girls Going Home By Raphael Soyer, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, 1937 Lithograph Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO )

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO ) El Station, Sunday Morning By Jack Markow, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, ca Lithograph

In the Dugout By Paul Clemens, Wisconsin Federal Art Project, WPA, 1938 Oil on masonite Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO )

Waiting for the Mail By Grant Wright Christian, Treasury Relief Art Project, Oil on canvas National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, transfer from General Services Administration

"Federal Ballet Presents" Illinois Federal Theatre Project National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (Federal Theater Project, Vassar Collection of Programs and Promotional Material Jericho-PA folder, Box 159)

Children's festival for pupils of the Federal Music Project classes held in Central Park, New York City. By an unknown photographer, New York City Federal Music Project, undated National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (69-N-18359)

Fishermen's Village By Edmund Lewandowski, Wisconsin Federal Art Project, WPA, 1937 Watercolor and gouache over pencil Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO )

History of Southern Illinois By Paul Kelpe, Illinois Federal Art Project, WPA, ca Gouache Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO )

Untitled Winter Scene (Chicago street) By Ceil Rosenberg, Public Works of Art Project, 1934 Oil on canvas Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 69-62)

Indian Village By Julius Twohy, Washington Federal Art Project, WPA, ca Lithograph Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO )

"Church in shacktown community. It is used by different sects, including Pentecostal. The curtains are made of flour sacks.... Near Modesto, Stanislaus County, California, May 10, 1940" By Dorothea Lange, Bureau of Agricultural Economics National Archives, Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (83-G-41382)

Photograph from the "Food for New York City" series By Sol Libsohn, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, 1939 National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (69-ANP-8-P )

Follow this link in order to see the series on working – a very impressive set deal_for_the_arts/work_pays_america.htmlhttp:// deal_for_the_arts/work_pays_america.html

SOURCES US National Archives (NARA) s/fdr_inaugural_address/fdr_inaugural_address.ht ml s/fdr_inaugural_address/fdr_inaugural_address.ht ml r_the_arts/celebrating_the_people1.html# r_the_arts/celebrating_the_people1.html# Library of Congress me.html me.html