NEW STAFF AND A NEW INITIATIVE

January 7, 2024

Mary Okin joined the team as Assistant Director both to bolster our administrative capacity and to launch a new program, Advocating for New Deal Art and Architecture. Mary holds a doctorate in Art History from UC Santa Barbara. She taught at San Jose State and served as a researcher at UC Berkeley. She brings expertise and energy to our team and is off and running contacting museums, archives and New Deal art experts around the country. Mary lives in Sunnyvale, California.

Arlene Geiger recently joined us as Director of Living New Deal’s New York City Chapter, replacing Peggy Crane. A native New Yorker, Arlene is a retired adjunct professor of Economics at John Jay College (CUNY) and a longtime political organizer. She brings deep knowledge of the city, valuable connections and new ideas. She was the unanimous choice of the Chapter’s working group.

We also welcomed Natalie McDonald to our team to locate and document New Deal sites in Los Angeles for the latest in our series of maps and guides to the New Deal. Natalie is a graduate student in history at Cal State University-Northridge. She has already discovered many new sites for our expanding online map and database of New Deal sites, while spiffing up past entries.

TEACHING ABOUT THE NEW DEAL

January 7, 2024

The biggest group of users of the Living New Deal’s online resources are students and teachers. The demand for such teaching materials is strong. Many American History teachers have reached out to us with requests and suggestions. Thus far, we have lacked the capacity to develop full-on teaching curricula, but have made significant progress thanks to the leadership of Development Director Kurt Feichtmeir. Kurt secured a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to work with the Washington DC school district, which requires all seniors to take a course on local history. The grant made possible an Educator’s Guide to accompany the Living New Deal’s online map to the New Deal Washington DC. We hope to do something similar with the New York City and Los Angeles school systems, making use of our maps to those cities to teach about the importance of the New Deal in U.S. history.

We’ve also reworked several bibliographies on our website, segmenting them by subject areas such as housing, infrastructure and art, and provided a dozen introductory reading lists of the ten or so best books on each topic.

LIVING NEW DEAL NATIONWIDE

January 7, 2024

The Living New Deal has become a truly national organization. Our staff and volunteer National Associates across the country are doing great work bringing the New Deal to life. Our public outreach includes webinars on a wide array of topics, from New Deal art to lessons in modern infrastructure. Locally, we offer in-person talks and events. Last year we hosted a New Deal tour of New York’s Central Park and a guided tour of New Deal art at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This outreach work has been led by Communications Director Susan Ives, Project Scholar Gray Brechin and the New York City chapter of the Living New Deal.

Judith Kenny, our volunteer Northwest Coordinator, sought and won a grant from the Kinsman Foundation for research and public education on the New Deal in Oregon. Not only has Judith added more than two hundred Oregon sites to our national map, she and local cinematographers produced “Landscape Harmony,” a beautiful video about the five extraordinary New Deal bridges along the Oregon’s coast, with magnificent aerial footage taken from drones. Judith has just been awarded a second Kinsman grant for 2023.

We also call your attention to our On the Road series—photographic and video travel essays about New Deal sites around the country. Our National Associate for Massachusetts, Fern Nesson, retraces some of the routes along the Eastern seaboard, famously laid out in the American Guides series published by the Federal Writers’ Project. Fern’s superb essays now number over fifty. Our National Associate for Indiana, Glory-June Greiff, who has nominated dozens of New Deal sites to the National Register, writes about her favorite New Deal sites in the Midwest. New contributor Oak McCoy (“Professor Oak”) uses videos to create virtual tours of New Deal works in California state parks.

New Dealish: Welcome to New Deal, Texas

January 3, 2024

Fortenberry Cotton Gin, New Deal, Texas Farmers who didn’t own a gin hauled their cotton to cooperative ginning plants. Courtesy, Lubbockonline.com.

During the Great Depression, New Deal programs helped improve farmland and agricultural practices in the Dust Bowl. The legacy of these programs can be seen across the Plains, but perhaps none so lastingly as in the town formerly known as Monroe that sprang up alongside the rails of the Southern Pacific in 1909. Named after the railroad promoter Monroe G. Abernathy, the town,eleven miles north of Lubbock, wasn’t much to see.Only one house was reported in the community in 1918. But by the late 1920s, the town had prospered enough to have a school, a general store, a blacksmith shop, cotton gins, a cafe and a lumberyard. In 1935, four rural schools districts consolidated and renamed the newly formed district after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Depression-era programs. The town of Monroe officially changed its name when a post office opened in 1949. The town of New Deal, Texas has a population of 723 New Dealers in residence today.

Living New Deal Featured in MyHighPlains

November 11, 2023

Richard Walker was interviewed by Jack Kesler about the Living New Deal’s mission to document and preserve the legacy of the New Deal in the 1930s to combat the effects of the Great Depression. Walker mentions that the Living new Deal’s mission serves three purposes: documenting New Deal public works, educating the public about New Deal History, and preserving New Deal sites, structure, and art. Read the full interview here.

New Dealish: “Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue”

October 25, 2023

“Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue” Courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts

During the New Deal, the government paid struggling artists to produce art through several federal art programs. Many of these artworks have since been lost, stolen or scattered. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is charged with recovering them. The recovery of John Sloan’s 1934 painting, “Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue,” took a convoluted path.
Produced under the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), the painting hung in the Washington, DC, office of New York Senator Royal S. Copeland until his death in 1938. When Senator James Byrnes took over Senator Copeland’s office, the painting was no longer there. A congressional staffer found the unframed painting in a pile of trash next to a dumpster and took it home. When the staffer died, his sister acquired the painting. She didn’t know that the art belonged to the people of the United States until 2003. That’s when it appeared on the Antiques Road Show valued at $750,000! The GSA learned about the painting and entered into an agreement under which it is now on long-term loan to the Detroit institute of Arts.
—From GSA Inspector Report, “Returning America’s Art to America,” 2011, with thanks to Brent McKee.

New Dealish: Berkeley Rose Garden Inspires a Song and Film

August 29, 2023

Plaque at Berkeley Rose Garden
Photo by Susan Ives

As development marched toward the Berkeley hills in the 1920s, the ravine carved by Cordonices Creek was considered too steep for houses. With panoramic westward views of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate, the 3.6-acre canyon captured the imagination of park advocates. Renowned Berkeley architect Bernard Maybeck designed a terraced amphitheater with a redwood pergola, and landscape architect Vernon M. Dean and Charles V. Covell, founder of the East Bay Rose Society, finalized the plan. The City of Berkeley then applied for federal funds available under New Deal public works programs.

Construction on the Berkeley Rose Garden began in 1933. Hundreds of men employed by Civil Works Administration and, later, the Works Progress Administration, worked over four years to install the garden. Among the six curved stone terraces are more than a thousand rose bushes, at their most spectacular in mid-May. The rose garden remains one of the city’s most cherished public spaces.

Songwriter Alexis Harte’s grew up playing at the Rose Garden and adjacent Cordonices Park, where the WPA also left its mark. Harte has memorialized his experiences in a ballad, “Your Rose Garden,” that celebrates, as he puts it, “the New Deal in our backyard.”

Recently, Harte received an $8,500 grant from UC Berkeley to make a short film based on the song. He has teamed up with Berkeley filmmaker Josh Peterson and the UC Cinematic Arts and Production Club. “We’re exploring a partnership with the Living New Deal ,” says Harte.

“If this project is successful, we plan to make a toolkit to help filmmakers, musicians, storytellers, artists, etc., create and fund similar tributes to the New Deal as we approach its centennial. We think that’s a national legacy worth celebrating.”

LISTEN: “Your Rose Garden” (4 minutes)

With thanks to Berkeleyside where Alexis Harte’s interview appeared.

“Imperial San Francisco” Now an Audio Book

August 29, 2023

Living New Deal founder Dr. Gray Brechin’s provocative 1999 bestseller, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, (University of California Press) is now available as an audio book narrated by the author. A website that accompanies the audio book’s release includes color illustrations from the book not previously published, synopses of select chapters and Imperial San Francisco delves into the often dark history of San Francisco’s development as an example of the environmental and social costs of urban growth more broadly, a cautionary tale for urban planners, historians, geographers, environmentalists as well as readers and listeners of all ages.

Dr Brechin is a historical geographer and author. His chief interests are the state of California, the environmental impact of cities upon their hinterlands, and the invisible landscape of New Deal public works. He was the first director of the Mono Lake Committee and has worked as journalist and TV producer in San Francisco. Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, spent sixteen weeks on the San Francisco Chronicle’s best-seller list and is considered a classic of urban studies.
LEARN MORE

Imperial San Francisco: Audiobook, available NOW

August 28, 2023

Gray Brechin’s provocative and best-selling book, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, first published by the University of California Press in 1999 is now available as an audio book read by Gray Brechin. The book is now more relevant than ever as contemporary events catch up with it.

The link below takes to the audiobook produced by Mary O’Hara and an accompanying new website designed by Alexis Harvey that includes some of the illustrations so important to the book—now largely in color—in addition to some that were not published. More supporting material will be added in the coming months.

Find the audiobook here.

Banyan Tree in WPA-Built Park in Lahaina HI Survives the Maui Fire

August 11, 2023

The Lahaina Banyan Tree has survived the Maui Fire and stands as a symbol of resilience as Lahaina mourns the many lives lost this week.

The Banyan Tree is a beloved landmark and an essential part of Maui’s cultural and natural heritage. The massive tree, planted in 1873, has grown to cover nearly two-thirds of an acre and is considered one of the largest banyan trees globally, with its numerous branches creating a canopy.

The banyan tree stands in a WPA-built park in Lahaina. It is the largest and best known tree in Hawai’i.

According to a story published by NPR on August 11, 2023, local authorities had initially been concerned that the fire might engulf the Lahaina Banyan Tree due to its proximity to the flames. However, as the fire subsided, it became evident that the tree had survived the ordeal. The tree has stood witness to over a century of historical events and remains a gathering place for locals and tourists alike.

The incident underscores the importance of preserving natural and cultural landmarks amidst environmental challenges. The fact that the Lahaina Banyan Tree survived the Maui fire is a relief to the community, symbolizing the enduring strength of both nature and heritage.