Many Americans viewed the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s active public life “with mingled admiration and alarm,” according to one reporter at the time. An Atlanta couple sent a telegram to FDR: “MR. PRESIDENT WOULD YOU PLEASE SUGGEST THAT MRS. ROOSEVELT CONFINE… read more
The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), a unique New Deal program begun in 1935, provided jobs to thousands; published scores of books (including the celebrated WPA American Guide series); kickstarted the careers of such legendary authors as Richard Wright and May… read more
Tell Us About Your Favorite New Deal Site Working from “Home”H.J. Patterson Hall, University of MarylandCollege Park, Maryland My office in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Maryland is in H.J. Patterson Hall, a Georgian-style,… read more
Open air theatres, from the modest 350-seat amphitheater in John Hinkel Park in Berkeley California, built of salvaged concrete by Civil Works Administration workers, to the internationally famous 9,000-seat Red Rocks Amphitheater above Denver— probably the greatest single project of… read more
“The thirties began in economic depression and in drought. The first of these disasters usually gets all the attention, although for many Americans living on farms, drought was the more serious problem,” Donald Worster wrote in his 1979 Bancroft Prize-winning… read more
Tell Us About Your Favorite New Deal Site Spectacularly Unpretentious: Charles S. Farnsworth County ParkAltadena, California I discovered this beloved 15-acre park in the foothills of the San GabrielMountains soon after moving to Altadena eight years ago. I was struck by the hand-laidstonework installed… read more
Victoria W. Wolcott, professor of History at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, has been named the winner of the Living New Deal’s annual New Deal Book Award for 2022. Her book, Living in the Future: Utopianism and… read more
Sources disagree over how much First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had to prod her husband to establish the National Youth Administration (NYA). However, there is no question that Mrs. Roosevelt was deeply troubled over the plight of the nation’s youth—that they… read more
Tell Us About Your Favorite New Deal Site A View of the Past: The San Francisco Beach ChaletCalifornia City officials relocated the popular two-story Beach Chalet from Ocean Beach to the foot of Golden Gate Park in 1925 when storm… read more
In 1933 Congress passed the Beer and Wine Revenue Act, also known as the Cullen-Harrison Act, allowing the sale and government taxation of alcoholic beverages with no more than 3.2 percent alcohol content, considered too low to be intoxicating. The… read more