Harvey Smith, Project Advisor to the Living New Deal Project and president of the National New Deal Preservation Association will be speaking at Cornell University.

Our present dire economic crisis invites comparison with the Depression era and calls for a reexamination of that creative legacy that went from the bottom up. Unprecedented government patronage not only enabled artists, writers, musicians and actors, as well as working men and women, to productively survive the Depression, it nourished collaboration, brought an array of free cultural and recreation programs to Americans for the first time, and forged a bond with the public through education programs, exhibitions, and performances. This type of grassroots innovation continues today in the nonprofit sector albeit on a much smaller scale without the base of government support.