Living New Deal Launches Webinar Series

In September, the Living New Deal NYC held “From the Original New Deal to the Green New Deal,” a webinar featuring a diverse group of panelists that attracted 400 registrants. Keynote speaker Robert Kuttner—distinguished economist, author and editor of The American Prospect—laid out an ambitious agenda for a Green New Deal he likened to World War II in scale. Deborah Gardner, historian and curator of Hunter College’s Roosevelt House, described the original New Deal using a wealth of images.
Julian Brave Noisecat, activist and vice president for policy for Data for Progress, discussed the art of coalition building needed to fight climate change and role of young activists, such as the Sunrise Movement, in garnering Congressional support. New York City Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver stressed the growing importance of green space for America’s cities, and green architect Elisa Iturbe spoke to the need for a new design paradigm based on a just transition to decarbonization.
Billy Fleming, head of the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, countered the myth of the New Deal as a top-down phenomenon, describing FDR’s role as “experimenter-in-chief.” Fleming named “jobs, justice and carbon” the three pillars of a Green New Deal. Author and historian Kevin Baker moderated the panel with his characteristic verve and historical knowledge.
Our thanks to Peggy Crane for organizing this lively and educational forum.  We plan to host other timely webinars on New Deal-inspired topics in 2021.

Defending New Deal Public Art

The New Deal commissioned more than 10,000 artworks, including 1,200 murals in post offices. Many are endangered by neglect, privatization and challenges to problematic images.  At least 16 murals in 12 states have recently been covered or removed by the US Postal Service (see the report by LND team member Evan Kalish).
We have developed recommendations for dealing with such controversies in a new Endangered Art  section of our website. It contains briefs on why New Deal art is important, racism in art, and practical advice for defending art, and it includes a growing list of imperiled New Deal works.
A recent example is the controversy over “Incidents in the History of Catonsville” by Avery Johnson. The post office mural depicting enslaved Black people pulling barrels of tobacco was hidden behind plastic sheeting last summer. Yet, Johnson seems to have intended an honest portrayal of local history with slave labor at the heart of the image, as described in an 1865 account of “the old method of getting tobacco to market,” found by Living New Deal Associate Will Cook.
This is an example of how controversial murals can have historical value and a point of view that offer opportunities for dialogue and education, as the Washington Post reports.  Such artworks must be defended against hasty, naïve and ahistorical attacks and should be debated and put to the larger community to decide on the artworks’ fate.
Our goal is to create a nationwide network of experts, preservationists and citizens to defend New Deal public art. If you are able to help fund this effort, contact Kurt Feichtmeir.

Living New Deal Website Suffers a Serious Hack

In mid-September the Living New Deal suffered a serious setback when tens of thousands of photographs and documents were deleted in what we believe was a politically motivated hack. Fortunately, the hack left all text and other data unscathed and we have backup for 95 percent of the lost photographs. Unfortunately, the worm ate through recent backups on the host server, so our staff and associates will need to spend hundreds of hours digging up lost photographs that were entered into the system over the summer.
All this is quite costly for us. In addition to restoring the photograph collection we hired a security firm to remove lingering code the hackers left behind and install more protective software and stronger security. In addition, we will need to change to a better defended server host and bring on board more IT expertise to support the hard work of our webmaster, Lisa Thompson. If you wish to help us defray these costs, please contact Kurt Feichtmeir.

A Call for People with a Passion for the New Deal

When the Living New Deal began documenting the New Deal’s public works a decade ago, we never imagined what a vast undertaking it would be. To date, our online map features 16,000 New Deal sites but there are tens of thousands more sites still to be discovered.
The Living New Deal is looking for people to join our team of National Associates—volunteers of all ages and backgrounds who sleuth out what the New Deal left to their communities for the Living New Deal‘s growing website.
What our National Associates have in common is a wish to keep the New Deal legacy alive and as a model for public policy today. If you are interested in the history and the ideals of the New Deal, we invite you to get in touch about becoming a National Associate. Please write to elliottmedrich@livingnewdeal.org.

Meet Volunteer Elliott Mendrich: Director, National Associates Program

I am a New Yorker, born and raised. New York City is the Living New Deal. Most of my life was lived around something built by WPA. As a child I didn’t think of the New Deal as public policy, but as part of daily life. We lived on the Upper West Side, adjacent to Riverside Park (as WPA as you could get!) I attended PS 87, a New Deal elementary school. The subway that I used to get to school, the bridges, the tunnels— are the landmarks I most remember from my childhood. As a student of Urban Geography at the University of Chicago, I took an interest in the housing legislation of the 1930s, which were driven by the idea of providing housing for all. In many cases this led to big high rises—low income housing with good intentions, but not supportive of a good quality of life. This became a launch pad for me thinking about how Depression-era responses shaped the social aspects of cities, especially how to create environments that are humane for children and families. Cities are not particularly friendly to those who don’t have the means to explore them. For kids, that lack of mobility can impact their entire lives. The New Deal built libraries, parks, zoos, pools and playgrounds—public spaces that improve urban quality of life. I am pleased to be supporting the 50 volunteer National Associates documenting and cataloging the range and breadth of New Deal projects all around the country. My role is to bring cohesion to this dedicated group. We couldn’t do what we do without them.

New Deal Guide to Tennessee’s Post Offices

National Associate David W. Gates Jr., Jr. of Crystal Lake, Illinois, has been photographing and writing about U.S. Post Offices for over 15 years. As founder of postofficefans.com, he has visited hundreds of post offices nationwide, many built by the New Deal during the Great Depression. Between 1934 and 1943 murals and other forms of art were commissioned and installed in public buildings under the Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture, later renamed the Section of Fine Arts. Artists competed for the commissions. Gates estimates that between 1,100 and 1,400 works of art are in post offices nationwide. As the Postal Service sells off these historic buildings, the fate of the many murals and artworks is unknown. Some get moved to other public locations, while others are no longer accessible. David’s second guidebook to post office murals (the first covers Wisconsin) took him to Tennessee, where he documented 28 New Deal post offices and their murals. The guidebook can be downloaded to your mobile phone. For more on David’s work, visit https://www.davidwgatesjr.net

Save the Date!

Wednesday, September 30, 6pm EDT
From the New Deal to the Green New Deal: Connecting the Dots Between the Past and the Future

The New York City branch of the Living New Deal will host a virtual panel discussion on the Green New Deal—the 1.0 version under FDR and the need for a 21st Century iteration to meet the social, economic and climate challenges of our time. Keynote speaker, Robert Kuttner—noted economist and editor of The American Prospect—will be joined by a multi-disciplinary panel including NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver; visionary green architect Elisa Iturbe; historian Deborah Gardner; Green New Deal policy and design expert Billy Fleming and Julian Noisecat—writer, researcher and climate justice and indigenous sovereignty activist. Historian, journalist and novelist Kevin Baker will moderate the discussion. To reserve your spot on the call, please contact Peggy Crane. Watch for an e-vite later this month featuring speakers’ bios and a Zoom link to the event, along with the opportunity to submit your questions in advance.

Art Specialist Barbara Bernstein Tells All

In my elementary school in Highland Park, Illinois, were scenes of Robin Hood by Mildred Waltrip, a WPA painter. WPA murals hang in the library at my high school. I thought it was so cool when I later learned that these treasures were from a Depression-era government arts program. I happened upon a mimeographed list of New Deal murals and began scouting for them during my lunch hour. I looked in the phone book for artists on the list and visited their studios—remnants of Bohemian Chicago. They were delighted by my interest and shared their stories and photos with me. In 1976, I won a grant to make a documentary about the Illinois Art Project. “Silver Lining” features New Deal art and artists around the state. When I moved to San Francisco in 1984, exploring public art seemed a good way to get to know the city. I loved the murals at Coit Tower and the Beach Chalet, and Benny Bufano’s sculptures. My husband, John Tibbets, had the idea for a website with maps and photos and programmed the first iteration of the New Deal Art Registry in 2007, which led us to the Living New Deal and my becoming their Public Art Specialist. I wish government would hire photographers to take high-quality photos of all the New Deal murals for Americans to use. After all, they belong to all of us.

Living New Deal Makes a Splash in NYC

There are more than a thousand New Deal sites across New York City, but because most are unmarked their common connection to the New Deal goes unrecognized. The Living New Deal’s New York City branch is working to remedy that. Thanks to our partnership with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, red, white and blue medallions will soon be installed identifying the New Deal origins of the city’s eleven Olympic-sized pools, all built in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration.
During the Great Depression and for going on 84 summers since, New Yorkers flocked to Crotona Park Pool in the Bronx, Astoria Pool in Queens, and Highbridge Pool in Manhattan, among others.  If the Living New Deal has its way, medallions will be placed at many other sites to recognize what the New Deal left to the city.
The medallion was designed to commemorate all types of New Deal projects, from pools to schools, public housing to post offices, playgrounds, courthouses and more,” says Peggy Crane, the Living New Deal’s New York City branch coordinator.
Because of the coronavirus, the city’s pools have yet to open for the summer. Stay tuned for the official rollout.

Mapping the New Deal in Washington DC

The New Deal’s contributions to the city are largely unknown, but they transformed the nation’s capital. Our forthcoming “Map and Guide to the Art and Architecture of New Deal Washington, DC” is meant to educate visitors, residents and federal workers about the vast New Deal legacy that surrounds them.
Among the District’s more than 500 New Deal sites are Rock Creek Park, the National Zoo, Howard University, Frederick Douglass’s home and the Federal Trade Commission Building. Along with details on major sites, the map features walking tours of downtown DC and buildings housing large collections of works by New Deal artists.The map launch, delayed by Covid-19, will take place early in 2021.
For the map’s cover, we chose a mural at the Department of the Interior, “Incident in Contemporary American Life,” by Mitchell Jamieson, depicting Marian Anderson’s Freedom Concert in 1939. After the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall because of her race, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the group in protest and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes offered the Lincoln Memorial instead. The event, nationally broadcast by radio, brought some 75,000 people came to the National Mall to hear Anderson sing.