Harvey Smith’s Berkeley and the New Deal

November 13, 2014

Harvey Smith speaking in Berkeley, 2014
Harvey Smith speaking in Berkeley Source
Photo Credit: Judith Scherr

Harvey Smith’s new book, Berkeley and the New Deal (Arcadia Press, 2014) got a nice story in the Contra Costa Times, a suburban paper in the San Francisco Bay Area. Part of Arcadia’s “Images of America” series, this book is a substantial piece of scholarship by Smith, not just a collection of historic photographs and incidental commentary like so many other Arcadia contributions. It makes for fascinating reading.

The Living New Deal Hits the Blogs

November 13, 2014

Word about the Living New Deal is getting around in the blog-o-sphere these days, we’re happy to report (especially Vox.com). A recent entry is from MetaFilter Community Weblog, an open forum type of blog with millions of followers.

We particularly appreciated the first comment posted there:

“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what has the New Deal ever done for us?…. Seriously though, this kind of thing makes me love the internet.”

Santa Monica’s Top Five New Deal Landmarks

November 13, 2014

Plaque on City Hall

Living New Deal Research Associate Charles Epting, a student at the University of Southern California, points out the five most prominent WPA projects in the City of Santa Monica for readers of the Santa Monica Mirror in this article. They are the Santa Monica pier and airport, Santa Monica high school, murals in the city hall, and a statue at McKinley Elementary School. As Charles notes, there are other New Deal sites not created by the WPA in the city, most notably the Santa Monica Post Office and City Hall itself. Charles is also the author of The New Deal in Orange County.

The New Deal on Route 66

November 6, 2014

The Living New Deal got a nice mention on the Route 66 News website, which noted several New Deal sites along old Route 66 (when it was still one of America’s premier new highways spanning the Great West from Chicago to L.A.). The author also correctly observed that there are several New Deal sites missing from our database and map, and did us the service of pointing people to our submissions page to fill in the gaps!

The Living New Deal in Houston

November 6, 2014

We are pleased to see that the Living New Deal got a mention in the Houston Chronicle recently! Despite its reputation as the nation’s most privatized city, Houston actually has many New Deal public works and has invested heavily in public infrastructure recently, including some terrific museums, a light rail system and more. Here’s the story. We especially appreciate that the story includes 25 sites photos taken, in part, from the Living New Deal online archive.

p.s. It is not true that the Living New Deal has already mapped all New Deal sites, but we hope to make that claim some day!

Living New Deal Hailed on Vox.Com

October 30, 2014

We are delighted to see that Matthew Iglesias of Vox.com gave a glowing acknowledgement of the Living New Deal is his popular blog & twitter feed, under the heading:

See every New Deal project in America, in one map

He begins with this: “The Living New Deal Project at UC Berkeley has released an awesome interactive map showing every New Deal project in the country. Since the New Deal spanned from Alaska to Puerto Rico and Panama, you need a very wide view to take it all in.” For the rest of the story, click here.

We won’t quibble with the slight exaggeration that the Living New Deal has already mapped ALL New Deal public works projects across the country, but that is our goal, and we are well on the way at 7,600 sites and counting…

The Roosevelts Visit the Kaiser Shipyards During WWII

October 17, 2014

Eleanor-Roosevelt-visits-Vancouver-Hospital-April-5-1943, 1943
Eleanor Roosevelt visits Kaiser-Permanente northern hospital Source

Thanks to Lincoln Cushing at the Kaiser-Permanente archives, we discovered that FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt both visited the Kaiser shipyards on the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington during the Second World War. Kaiser’s shipyards cranked out merchant ships to support the war effort at an unprecedented rate, using mass production techniques, and his wartime industries employed upwards of 250,000 people as a whole. Henry Kaiser was one of the largest and most innovative industrialists of his era, and one of the few who supported FDR and the New Deal. For the stories of Franklin ‘stealth’ visit and Eleanor’s very public one, which included the northern hospital or the revolutionary Kaiser-Permanente health system, then in its infancy, see the KP history website here and here.

Mapping New Deal New York and Washington, DC

August 20, 2014

The Living New Deal is currently engaged in a major effort to expand our coverage of New Deal sites in and around Washington and New York City. Because these are two central places in the national consciousness, they are key to educating the American people about the legacy of the New Deal and its public works. LND Research Associates, Brent McKee and Evan Kalish, are hard at work in the National Archives, digging up data on WPA, PWA, FAP and other projects in their respective cities (Brent is our Mid-Atlantic Research Director and Evan is New York Research Director). They have uncovered some veins of pure gold in terms of detailed tables, photographs and other archival goodies. Here are our stalwarts at work, when Gray Brechin visited and joined in the fun recently.

Brent & Evan at the National Archives, 2014
Brent & Evan at the National Archives
Photo Credit: Gray Brechin Creative Commons

Brent McKee, 2014
Brent at the National Archives
Photo Credit: Gray Brechin Commons

Fire Sale of the Post Offices

August 8, 2014

The thirteen murals in the Bronx Post Office created by New Deal artists Ben Shahn and Bernarda Bryson are considered masterpieces.

The Bronx Post Office
The thirteen murals in the Bronx Post Office created by New Deal artists Ben
Shahn and Bernarda Bryson are considered masterpieces.

Gray Brechin’s article on the hasty sell-off of US post offices was the featured piece on Consortium News online on August 6th, 2014. Brechin begins:

“In an earlier time, U.S. post offices were more than just places to mail letters. They were noble structures, symbols of democracy, stone-and-mortar testimony to the value of community. But many are now neglected and up for sale. Who owns America’s post offices and their continent-spanning gallery of public art? The “as is” sale of the Bronx’s decaying central post office — and of so many other post offices recently sold or for sale — begs the question of Americans for whom those buildings were intended and for which they paid…” To continue reading

Ken Burns’ Roosevelt Documentary to Air in September

August 6, 2014

America’s greatest documentarian, Ken Burns, has finally turned his camera toward two of America’s greatest presidents and their remarkable family. The Roosevelts: An Intimate History is a seven part, fourteen hour long reflection on the Teddy Roosevelt (TR), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Sara and Eleanor Roosevelt and others of this old, aristocratic clan from the Hudson River Valley who had such a revolutionary impact on US politics.

Burns Roosevelt documentary publicity photo
Lead publicity photo from PBS.org/theroosevelts Source

TR was president during the Progressive Era at the dawn of the 20th century, acting both as a reformer battling Big Business and an ardent imperialist. FDR was president in the darkest hours of the Great Depression and Second World War, and his New Deal gave the country hope and reignited the economy after disastrous shrinkage and mass unemployment under Republican President Herbert Hoover. The Progressives, New Deal and wartime mobilization all brought major expansions of American government, democratic participation, and public investment. Eleanor, an active and outspoken First Lady to FDR, perhaps most clearly embodied the ethical spirit behind Rooseveltian reforms, and she became a hero to American women of the time.

FDR at CCC Camp, Shenandoah Park, 1933
FDR at CCC camp, Shenandoah Park
Photo Credit: Harpers Ferry, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection

The Roosevelts will air for a week, from Sunday through Saturday, September 14-20, 2014, 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET on PBS stations across the country (repeated 10-12 p.m.). Episodes 4 and 5, on September 17th and 18th, are especially important from our point of view, as they deal directly with the New Deal, whose legacy The Living New Deal is busy recovering. It is a great reminder of what American democracy and the American people can achieve under even the direst of circumstances – food for thought in our present difficult times of poor economic performance, vexatious politics and alienation from government.

The official website of The Roosevelts: An Intimate History has all the relevant information about airtimes and a set of Study Guides for further education of interested viewers. PBS stations will stream the series in its entirety after the initial September showing.

Why Don't They Make Democrats Like They Used To?, 2003
Why Don’t They Make Democrats Like They Used To? SourceTime Magazine Cover