CCC Makes History at Bandelier

June 15, 2014

Bandelier Visitor Center
CCC Historic Area — Bandelier
Photo Credit: Susan Ives

When Unit 815 of the Civilian Conservation Corps arrived at the edge of a steep canyon north of Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1933, the only way in was by foot or horseback via a mile-long switchback trail. Back then, George and Evelyn Frey and their son Richard were Frijoles Canyon’s only residents. The Frey’s ran a small lodge serving intrepid visitors to the nearby cliff dwellings that native people had occupied for centuries.
Over the next eight years, the CCC would build thirty-one Pueblo Revival-style structures for the Bandelier National Monument—the largest collection of CCC buildings at any national park.

Bandelier Visitor Center
A corner fireplace reflects the traditional Southwest style.
Photo Credit: Susan Ives

To make the park more welcoming, the CCC Boys’ first project was to build a 3-mile road into the canyon. The construction of the visitor center, guest cabins, campground, retaining walls, water fountains, park service residences and offices, fire tower, and entrance station would follow.

The indelible mark the CCC left at Bandelier took more than muscle. Older, skilled workers, known as LEM’s (Local Experienced Men) taught the enrollees crafts such as tinwork, furniture making, carpentry, woodcarving, and masonry.

Chandelier
CCC recruits learned local crafts, like tinwork.
Photo Credit: Susan Ives

The buildings, designed by Park Service architect Lyle Bennett, are of local stone—Bandelier rhyolite tuff— and are built around a central plaza to harmonize with the landscape and culture. The visitor center reflects traditional New Mexican style—a corner fireplace, carved wooden support beams called vigas, and latillas—saplings placed in a herringbone pattern on the ceiling—and are testimony to the skills the young men learned on the job. The Spanish Colonial tin chandeliers and wall sconces they created are still in use.

CCC at Work at Bandelier
New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument holds the largest collection of CCC structures in the National Park Service.
Photo Credit: Susan Ives

The Boys also crafted wooden bed frames, desks, dressers, chairs, stools, benches, wood boxes, and tin mirrors for the cabins, which closed in 1976. The portal, a long, covered porch, is still used for demonstrations of Pueblo Indian arts and crafts.
The CCC camp at Bandelier—one of more than 2,600 across the country—was bulldozed in 1941 immediately after its occupants left. But their imprint on the park will endure.

In 1987 the National Park Service designated the Bandelier CCC Historic District, which ensures preservation of these unique and beautiful structures and the legacy of the men who built them.

Famed Coit Tower Murals Restored

June 14, 2014

Orange Harvest
Mural “California” by Maxine Albro

The long-awaited restoration of twenty-seven New Deal murals at San Francisco’s Coit Tower is complete. The tower re-opened to the public with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 14.

The murals were painted in 1934 under the auspices of the Public Works of Art Project, the first New Deal employment program for artists. They depict scenes of California in the 1930s. The Living New Deal’s Advisor Harvey Smith wrote the tower’s new signage interpreting the murals and the tumultuous times that inspired them.

Library
Mural “Library” by Bernard Zakheim

Age and neglect had taken a toll on both the tower and its artworks. Local activists pushed a successful ballot initiative to require the city to dedicate funds to restore and protect the landmark and murals. The tower closed in October 2013 for the $1.3 million upgrade.

Coit Tower, named for Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a colorful local character, was built in 1933. With 360-degree views of the city and the bay, the tower is one of San Francisco’s most visited landmarks.

May 2014 Newsletter

May 15, 2014

Fanning the Flame

Unfettered corporate campaign contributions. Banks deemed too big to fail. Refusing to pay a living wage. Cutting off food aid to those in need. Undermining workers’ right to organize. Privatizing the public domain. Insults like these may be why we’re seeing a surge of interest in the New Deal— a time when America invested in itself and ordinary working people.

More than a quarter million visitors came to the Living New Deal’s website over the past year to learn about the forgotten landscape Americans built during hard times and the public-spirited leadership that inspired it. Recent news about our work is further fanning the flame.

Please join us this summer for New Deal talks and tours. Send your stories and photos to our website. Help spread the word—It’s time for a new New Deal!

Your generosity keeps us going. We welcome tax-deductible donations to The Living New Deal.

Books: Down Cut Shin Creek,
The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky
by Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer
Harper Collins, 58 pages

January 30, 2014

Cover, “Down Cut Shin Creek, The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky”

Building the roads, bridges, and other infrastructure that became the hallmark of the WPA was considered “men’s work.” But by 1935, with millions of women heading households and on relief, the WPA sought jobs for them, too. Young women were hired as traveling librarians, bringing free library services to thousands of Americans for the first time.

Rural communities had few roads so the librarians had to be resourceful. Depending on the terrain, they frequently made their rounds on foot, riding horseback, or by boat. The story of these intrepid young women comes alive with historic photos in this small book, which will delight young and adult readers alike.

According to Down Cut Shin Creek, The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky, “The Kentucky pack horse librarians were tough. They had to be in order to travel atop horses and mules over the rockiest terrain, through all kinds of weather, carrying books and magazines up and down creek beds named Hell-for-Sartin, Troublesome, and Cut Shin because of their treacherous natures.”

Delivering Library Books by Pack Horse

Kentucky was particularly hard hit during the Great Depression. With the coalmines closed, families were often hungry and cut off from the wider world. The pack horse librarians that made their way to remote one-room schoolhouses and ramshackle cabins became a lifeline in ways not foreseen by WPA administrators. Beyond the books and magazines they carried in their saddlebags, the women were called upon to carry messages between the isolated mountain families, send for doctors and midwives, and deliver medicine. They looked in on shut-ins and read aloud to those unable to read.

By 1943 with the New Deal largely de-funded, nearly a thousand pack horse librarians had reached more than a million and a half Kentuckians.

Pack Horse Librarians, Mounted

Carl D. Perkins was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Knott County, Kentucky during the 1930s. In 1956, as a member of Congress, he introduced legislation authorizing the first federal funding for permanent public libraries. The bill specifically provided funds for bookmobiles. Perkins credited his support for public libraries to the pack horse librarians of Kentucky.

With thanks to Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer and Angelia R. Pulley.

Read excerpts from Down Cut Shin Creek, The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky.

Building for the Birds

January 30, 2014

1938 Sacramento Migratory Waterfowl Refuge entrance
Sacramento, CA 1938

The Civilian Conservation Corps was envisioned as a peacetime army to put young men to work preserving the nation’s forests and wildlife. When Congress approved funding in 1934 to add eight million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System, the CCC spread out across the country to build it. In May 1937, two hundred CCC enrollees arrived in California to start construction of the Sacramento Migratory Waterfowl Refuge.

The goal was to provide habitat for migratory birds and wildlife on 10,700 acres of failed farmland in the Central Valley. The Bureau of Biological Survey—later renamed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—oversaw the work. As it was the Biological Survey’s second wildlife refuge, the CCC camp was named BS-2.

People Power
Men raise a telephone poll by hand.

Heavy equipment was in short supply that first summer and much of the work was done by pick and shovel. The men restored some ranch buildings for offices, and demolished others using the salvaged materials for camp repairs and project work. Mosquito bitten, sunburned, and dust-choked, the men worked year round constructing levees, dikes, and jetties; laying pipe; and clearing creeks, channels, and drains to create wetlands for the refuge. They planted rice and millet within the refuge in order to keep the waterfowl from feeding on nearby farmland.

In summer, CCC crews fought wildfires in the surrounding foothills and mountains. In bad winters, they helped sandbag against flooding in the small towns along the Sacramento River some ten miles east.

Snow Geese at the Sacramento Migratory Waterfowl Refuge
at the Sacramento Migratory Waterfowl Refuge

While few camp buildings survive, a 100-foot tower built as a fire lookout still stands today. Biologists likely used the tower when they tallied 36,000 ducks and 72,000 geese on the refuge in December 1937. In December 1938 more than a million birds were counted.

Today, the site of CCC camp BS-2 serves as the headquarters of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The present pond system and many dikes and roadways are products of the summer of 1937. The refuge welcomes some 250 species of birds, hundreds of thousands of wintering waterfowl, and 75,000 visitors annually.

The headquarters area is eligible for designation as a National Historic District, but there’s currently no funding to preserve the structures to Historic District guidelines.

What the CCC Build at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge:
–   52 water control and road structures
–   1 diversion dam
–   1 combined bridge and dam
–   16 miles of refuge roads
–   10 miles of fence
–   Manager’s residence and garage
–   Labor patrolman’s cabin
–   Equipment storage shed
–   Service Building
–   Water tank
–   Lookout tower
–   Refuge office
–   Barn
–   Duck hospital
–   Grain bins
–   Flag pole
–   Miles of dikes
–   Numerous nesting and resting islands
–   Farmland producing feed for wildlife
–   Entrance and location signs

: Blue Goose Work at Sacramento Refuge

: 1937 Canal Cleaning

: Survey work at Sacramento Refuge

With thanks to Lora Haller, Visitor Services Manager at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.

WPA Posters Inspire A New Generation

January 30, 2014

Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon poster by Matt Brass
Photo Credit: Matt Brass

Inspired by the New Deal arts programs, Creative Action Network (CAN), an online community of mission-driven artists, announced a crowdsource campaign to create a new collection of “See America” posters celebrating America’s national parks. Within a few weeks about two hundred poster designs hit their inbox, with new submissions arriving daily.

“With today’s digital tools, individual artists have the power to create and share their work as never before. That’s why now is the time to pick up where the New Deal left off, and harness America’s creative energy,” says Max Slavkin, CAN’s co-founder.

During the 1930s the WPA’s Federal Art Project put thousands of unemployed artists to work. FAP poster divisions opened in 48 states, churning out posters promoting art, theater, safety, education, health, and travel. Early on, the posters were hand-painted and produced in small quantities. But in 1938, a poster campaign to encourage visitation to the national parks was launched in Berkeley, California, using new silkscreen techniques that enabled full-color posters to be printed in bulk. The posters, which sold for about twelve cents a piece, were distributed to Chambers of Commerce in towns surrounding the parks. In the 1940s the remainders were sent to the parks. Few original posters survive, but quality reproductions abound: https://www.rangerdoug.com

Craters of the Moon
Luis Prado, Craters of the Moon poster
Photo Credit: Luis Prado

Seventy-five years after the national park posters first appeared, CAN, in partnership with the National Parks and Conservation Association and Posters for the People, revived the “See America” campaign using social media. In January, a collection of the new posters was shown in San Francisco and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York. More exhibitions are in the works. The “See America” designs are for sale, with forty percent of proceeds going to the artists.

Here’s one of the WPA posters that appeared on “The Living Dead” (see comment below):

January 2014 Newsletter: A New Generation Asks, “Why Not Now?”

January 30, 2014

Thanks to a growing team of volunteers sending us their New Deal discoveries, the forgotten legacy of the New Deal is coming to light. Little known stories like those you’ll find here reveal a few of the many ways the New Deal touched people’s lives—creating jobs, teaching trades, building homes, restoring the environment, bringing art and literacy to Americans everywhere. A new generation is catching on to what the New Deal built when the country was broke and is beginning to ask “Why not now?” Why indeed.

We’re grateful for your interest and support.

Opposition Growing to Post Office Sell Off

January 29, 2014

Our Post Office is not For Sale

Popular opposition to the sale of America’s historic post offices is gathering momentum; Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) introduced HR 466, urging the U.S. Postal Service to halt all sales of historic postal buildings across the country. Earlier this month Lee and Rep Jose Serrano (D-NY) added a rider to an Appropriations bill to stop the sale of historic post offices pending an investigation by the Inspector General into possible improprieties in sale of the post offices properties. Lee’s legislation expands on that effort. At least one investigation may have been triggered by the Berkeley-based National Post Office Collaborate which in October obtained a temporary restraining order blocking sale of the post office in Stamford, Conn. The National Trust for Historic Preservation named the Stamford decision one of the ten big wins of 2013 . Lee represents Berkeley, where activists have resisted the sale of the downtown post office. She called the historic post office buildings “an integral part of our cultural heritage, not to be used as a bargaining chip in resolving the Postal Service’s financial woes.”

The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times recently reported on how Berkeley, California is becoming the epicenter of resistance to the sale of America’s historic post offices and dismantling of the U.S. Postal Service.

Welcome to Our New Advisors

January 29, 2014

The Living New Deal welcomes John Roosevelt Boettiger, Janet Roosevelt Katten, (shown here) and David Rumsey to our distinguished Board of Advisors.

The Living New Deal welcomes three new members to our distinguished Board of Advisors: John Roosevelt Boettiger, Janet Roosevelt Katten, and David Rumsey.

John Boettiger, an author and retired professor of psychology, is the grandson of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. As a boy during World War II, John lived at the White House where his mother, Anna, was a close advisor to the president. While attending Columbia University, he lived with his grandmother joining her in travels on behalf of the United Nations. He is chairman of the board and president of the Christopher Reynolds Foundation. He lives in Mill Valley, California.

Janet Roosevelt Katten is the niece of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and grandniece of President Theodore Roosevelt. As a child, Janet was a frequent guest at the White House and at Val-Kill, her Aunt Eleanor’s home in Hyde Park, New York. Jan grew up outside Detroit. Her mother, Dorothy Kemp Roosevelt, was a political activist and concert pianist who founded the Michigan Orchestra and the WPA Orchestra. Janet majored in music and art at Bennington College and studied architecture at the Institute of Design in Chicago, and later worked as a designer. She lives in San Francisco.

David Rumsey is digital publisher and software entrepreneur. He began collecting historical maps in 1980 and today has one of the largest private collections in the United States. His website, DavidRumsey.com, contains more than 30,000 images, including atlases, maps, globes, manuscripts, maritime charts, and cartographic materials dating from 1700 to the 1950s. David lives in San Francisco.

A CCC Jewel Restored on Lake Michigan

October 24, 2013

Lake Michigan Beach House
Exterior (Restored)

When the state of Michigan was given 3,500 acres of logged-over land on the shores of Lake Michigan in 1926, it was hoped that the nearby Big Sable Point Lighthouse might become a beacon not only for ships but for tourists as well. Back then, the land was reachable only by foot or boat, and the state lacked money to develop it as a park. That changed in 1933 with the advent of the New Deal.

The Pere-Marquette S-2 CCC Camp quickly went up on the state’s land and the young men of the Michigan Civilian Conservation Corps began shaping the sand dunes, beaches, and skid trails into the Ludington State Park.

Under the direction of the National Park Service, they built roads, retaining walls, campgrounds, hiking trails, the park’s headquarters, and the Lake Michigan Beach House. Designed by renowned NPS architect Ralph B. Herrick, the one-of-a-kind, arts-and-crafts-style Beach House is regarded as the crown jewel of Michigan’s park system.

Lake Michigan Beach House
Veranda

The CCC Boys hand dug the foundation, water system, and septic field for the 116-foot building. A deal struck with the Morton Salt Company in the nearby town of Ludington had the CCC tear down a derelict salt mill in exchange for salvaged materials. The Corps carefully reclaimed the rust- colored bricks and massive, rough-sawn, white pine beams to build the two-story Beach House.

Time and weather took their toll on the 1935 landmark. In 1999 the state undertook a $1.6 million restoration of the iconic building. Reconstruction began in 2012. The interior was gutted and a new wood shingle roof was installed. The exterior— sandblasted over decades by the fierce Lake Michigan winds—was refurbished with new bricks and mortar carefully chosen to match the original.

Lake Michigan Beach House
Interior (Restored)

The upper floor, which had been subdivided, was restored to one large room. The original stone fireplace still occupies the south end. Doors on three sides lead to a veranda and patio. In place of the original changing rooms, there’s now a café and gift shop. New signage along the beach walk interprets the geology of Lake Michigan and some of the largest freshwater sand dunes in the world.

CCC Men
in front of the newly constructed Beach House, 1935

Ludington State Park has grown to 5,300 acres and receives nearly a million visitors annually. The Lake Michigan Beach House was added to the National Register of Historic Places this year. A display honoring the men of the CCC who built the state park soon will be installed in the beautiful Beach House they constructed.

With thanks to Alan Wernette, State Park Interpreter,
Ludington State Park