The 1927 Vermont Floods and the Dams the CCC crews built

The Vermont Digger published a story by Mark Bushnell about the dams built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in Vermont.

The flood that affected Vermont last week was labeled a once-a century event. We are reminded that a similar storm—also a once-in-a-century event—hit Vermont almost a century ago. In 1927, Vermont was hit by catastrophic flooding that brought 84 deaths, of which 55 were in the Winooski River basin. In addition the flood caused an estimated $30 million in property damage.

“Vermont looked to the remedy preferred by other New England states, which urged power companies to build dams to create reservoirs. In 1930, the state’s Public Service Commission identified five areas in the Winooski River basin where reservoirs could be constructed, and the Vermont Legislature took up the issue. “ Read the rest of the story here.


CCC Waterbury Dam, Vermont
Work begins at the Waterbury dam in this undated photo. Vermont Historical Society.

Men work on one of the walls of the Wrightsville dam in 1935. Vermont Historical Society

Lincoln Financial Field

Lincoln Financial Field, “The Linc”, on Pattison Avenue between 11th and South Darien streets in South Philadelphia (and part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex), is the present home field of the National Football League’s Philadelphia Eagles.
The team’s name and eagle logo came from the symbol of the National Recovery Administration of the New Deal– see https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/05/national-recovery-administration-forgotten-symbol-of-new-deal-agency-gave-philadelphia-eagles-their-team-name.html.
The team then played at the Baker Bowl, a field they shared with the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball.

Edward Landa (Living New Deal National Associate)

Sources:

The Other NRA (Or How the Philadelphia Eagles Got Their Name), Slate Magazine, 2013, accessed July 2023,

https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/05/national-recovery-administration-forgotten-symbol-of-new-deal-agency-gave-philadelphia-eagles-their-team-name.html

How NFL teams got their nicknames, CNN, 2010, accessed July 2023,

https://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/09/13/mf.nfl.teams.names/index.html

One Lincoln Financial Field Way, Philadelphia PA 19148 Philadelphia County National Recovery Administration (NRA).

Graphic of NRA Blue Eagle, ca. 1933; Records of the National Recovery Administration, 1927-1937. National Archives and Records Administration.

Living New Deal featured in Friday’s Labor Folklore

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The Friday’s Labor Folklore newsletter featured the work of the Living New Deal. The piece quotes Richard Walker, who noted that, “[t]here is no better time to illuminate what the New Deal did. We want to show that the New Deal worked and continues to deliver today.” The piece goes on to describe the breadth of the Living New Deal project database and mentions the maps of Washington D.C., New York City, and San Francisco. 

Democrats Used to Be Able to Get Things Done. What Happened?

But Democrats have a problem that has bedeviled their leaders on and off ever since shrewd political bosses from Albany and stalwart Jeffersonians from Virginia founded what would become the party roughly 200 years ago. They lack a social movement of working people that could turn passive support for universal social programs into a force large and vocal enough to enact lasting change. Read the story here.
By Michael Kazin
The New York Time, February 25, 2022

Environmental organizations unveil ‘Green New Deal pledge’ for 2022 candidates

Environmental organizations unveil ‘Green New Deal pledge’ for 2022 candidates
Signers of the pledge commit to rejecting any donations of more than $200 from fossil fuel interests and commit to co-sponsoring 10 pieces of Green New Deal-related legislation within six months of taking office. These include the original Green New Deal resolution, the Green New Deal for Cities, the Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice Act, and the Keep it in the Ground Act, which would ban new fossil fuel projects on federal lands and waters.
By Zack Budryk
THE HILL, March, 28, 2022

New-Deal-Built Lava Elementary School in Idaho to Potentially Close

The Marsh Valley School District Board of Trustees plans to discuss the closure of the school because of a budget shortfall and its declining student population. The school has only 68 students. The Lava High School gymnasium was built in 1934 under the Public Works Administration as part of the New Deal.  The gym was designed by Miles E. Miller of Salt Lake City in a Classical Revival design. Read an Idaho State Journal story about the closure here.

New Deal-Built Gym in Pine Village, IN to be Demolished in March 2023

WPA-built Elementary school gymnasium, formerly a high school gymnasium, will be demolished in March 2023. Despite the installation of a new roof, the concrete walls structure have deteriorated to such extent that the structure cannot be saved. Indiana-based Living New Deal associates, Glory-June Greiff and Doug Logan, have documented the structure in an effort to preserve its memory before it disappears.

In an On the Road essay titled, “Pine Village Gym: ‘Progress’ Goes Before a Fall,” Glory-June Greiff travels to Pine Village to photograph the structure and record the story of the gym.

Doug Logan has posted a project page on Pine Village, and shared with us his photos of the structure, as well as several articles that announce the impending demolition.

Glory-June Greiff
Photo by Doug Logan
Photo by Doug Logan

Transforming the Nation’s Food System: Lessons from the New Deal and Strategies for Today

New-Deal-90-Logo
2023.03.02_NewDealZoom

The Living New Deal NYC Chapter, Roosevelt House, Hunter College City University of New York, and Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center,

invite you to attend

a new public program
presented only on Zoom

Transforming the Nation’s Food System:

Lessons from the New Deal and Strategies for Today

Thursday, March 2, 2023
7:00 pm (ET)

Click here to RSVP

Roosevelt House and Living New Deal’s NYC Chapter are pleased to present an expert roundtable to explore how federal policy initiatives can spur revitalization of regional agriculture, better conditions for farm and food-processing workers, more equitable food distribution, and improved nutrition for all Americans — measures that recall successful New Deal programs.

The trauma of the pandemic alone has not changed the underlying forces that have shaped the nation’s food supply chain over many decades, narrowly concentrating sources of food production, processing, and distribution. The emergency infusion of funding for SNAP benefits, food pantries, and charitable hunger-relief programs is abating, though food insecurity persists widely.

This year’s anticipated re-authorization of the federal farm bill is an opportunity to transform the nation’s food system. First enacted during the Great Depression, this omnibus statute encompasses a host of agricultural programs as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — the largest source of federal food assistance for low-income Americans. Recent federal actions address food supply-chain insecurity, support for small farmers, and SNAP program management.

Many of these measures resonate with successful initiatives of the New Deal era. These included hunger relief programs in rural and urban areas, including schools; construction of farm-to-market roads; rural electrification, facilities for farmer education and agricultural research; and housing for farmer resettlement. New Deal programs funded construction of urban farm market structures, some of which survive today in New York State and elsewhere.

The experts gathered for the March 2 roundtable will explore current challenges and opportunities and reflect on the legacies of the New Deal for today’s policymakers.

Moderator:

Jeff Gold is a New York City-based urbanist and editor, chair of the Metro NY Health Care for All Campaign, and director of the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility. Gold serves on the NYC Working Group of the Living New Deal. He has coordinated community needs planning sessions with local residents of distressed smaller cities to find solutions to ‘food deserts’ and other serious food supply problems. 

Panelists:

Kate MacKenzie is Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy (MOFP) and advises the Mayor on all issues related to food policy and the City’s food system. She leads the City’s Good Food Purchasing commitments, focused on increasing access to healthy, sustainable foods for the over 238 million meals and snacks served daily by City agencies, from public schools to senior centers. She oversees Food Forward NYC, the City’s first ever 10-year food policy plan, which lays out a comprehensive policy framework to reach a more equitable, sustainable, and healthy food system by 2031. She came to the MOFP with over two decades of experience fighting for food security and broader anti-poverty solutions in New York City and nationally in non-profit organizations and academia, including senior executive roles for City Harvest where she worked from 2007 until 2019 when she was appointed by Mayor DeBlasio to lead the MOFP. Mackenzie taught at Columbia University’s Teachers College as an Adjunct Professor from 2010-2013. 

Annette Nielsen is the Acting Director of the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center. Until recently, she led the New York City office for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. Representing the Department, she provided a touchpoint for the agricultural and food industries in the greater metropolitan area, while supporting statewide efforts to build resilient food systems. Her portfolio included facilitating the Commissioner’s statewide Community Gardens Task Force and the NYS Advisory Group for Improving Urban and Rural Consumer Access to Locally Produced Healthy Foods (Procurement Advisory Group). From production to consumption, her work has included launching an incubator kitchen, collaborating on an 8,000 sf community garden, facilitating farm-to-institution initiatives, serving on the inaugural health and wellness committee as an elected member of an NYS board of education, as well as significant work in agricultural tourism, mentoring nutrition students, and teaching culinary nutrition and food systems to medical residents. She has published numerous articles and is a member of the Policy Committee for the Food Ed Coalition at the Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance.

Jan Poppendieck is a Professor Emerita of Sociology at Hunter College, a co-founder of the New York City Food Policy Center at Hunter, and a senior fellow at the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy. Her primary concerns, both as a scholar and as an activist, are poverty, hunger, and food assistance in the United States.  She is the author of Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance in the Great Depression (Rutgers,1986, University of California Press, 2014), Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement (Viking, 1998, Penguin, 1999) and Free For All: Fixing School Food in America,(University of California Press, 2010.Jan is a recipient of a 2011 James Beard Foundation Leadership Award and appears in the documentaries A Place at the Table and Lunch Lines. She serves on the Board of Directors of Community Food Advocates, and the Advisory Committees of Wellness in the Schools and the Hunter College Welfare Rights Initiative, and she is a member of the Global Alliance for Food, Health, and Social Justice.

Myron Thurston is the Food Supply Chain Marketing Specialist for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oneida County and is a Senior Resource Educator in the Cornell System. His most recent position was in Agriculture Economic Development at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Madison County, and he worked with farmers there to help them prepare for expansion, diversification, and financial protection for their agribusinesses. He also is a grant reviewer for the USDA. Myron has a significant background in grant research and grant writing as he was in nonprofit fundraising and development for over a decade before coming to Cornell. He also served as the head of marketing for two nonprofits in Central New York. Myron grew up on a 100-year-old family dairy farm that milked some 350 cows and farmed on 2,000 acres in Oneida County, NY.

Please click the link below to join via Zoom:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85483883419