A Corps for the Climate The infrastructure bills now stuck in Congress could reverse the decades-long dismantling of the New Deal. Popular with the public, the legislation includes funding for a new Civilian Conservation Corps—a Civilian Climate Corps. The original… read more
Beyond Infrastructure In overcoming the Great Depression, the New Deal approached national recovery not only through vast public works for which it is best known, but also through the arts, education, conservation and a social safety net. The New Deal’s… read more
Investing In Prosperity The New Deal was an unprecedented campaign of national construction. According to a study by economists Price Fishback and Valentina Kachanovskaya, the New Deal cost $41.7 billion at the time—about $827 billion in today’s dollars. What did… read more
An American Renaissance In the midst of the Great Depression the federal government initiated a series of programs to hire unemployed artists and writers. Today, these provide a lens through which American history, values and everyday life were viewed in the 1930s. The first… read more
This Land Was Made for You and Me Like thousands of other Dust Bowl refugees, Woody Guthrie migrated to California. He scraped by, busking for spare change, washing dishes, sweeping floors. In 1937, he got a job at a small… read more
Sweet Land of Liberty As a child, singer Marian Anderson (1897-1993) showed remarkable talent, but she was turned away from the Philadelphia Music Academy because she was Black. Her church raised money for her to take private lessons. In 1939, the Daughters… read more