Stories

Personal histories are a vital part of the New Deal legacy.

We are recording family memories of the New Deal. If you have a story of a parent, uncle, cousin, grandfather or great aunt who participated in the New Deal, please share it with us, along with any photographs you may have. It’s quite possible that you have relatives who were employed in one of the many New Deal programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), or the National Youth Administration (NYA). If you want to find out more about them, check out our new resource, Finding New Deal Ancestors for tips on how to perform ancestry research.

• William T. Davoren - Tiburon, CA

  • March 17, 2011

  I first met FDR, the acronym, probably in 1936 when I was 12. I remember a short conversation with my mom. She was a legal secretary and mother of four. Helluva gal, barely five feet tall. It seems I was asking about how come we had a house to live ...
• Carol Dalrymple

  • March 17, 2011

  I was born Sept. 24th, 1940 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My father was either working for the WPA at the time or soon thereafter. My mother never tired of telling the story of how the WPA made an error and gave her two baby layettes for me instead of one. They ...
• Ralph Anderson - Boulder, Colorado

  • March 17, 2011

  I grew up in the 1930s in the Rockridge district in Oakland. Construction of the New Tunnel Road began sometime early in this period just over the hill from our house with WPA workers using wheel barrows and shovels. They worked in this fashion for a year or two until ...
• Bob & Stella Pilgrim

  • March 17, 2011

  We've reviewed Gray Brechin's beautifully written short essay published in the S.F. Chronicle on 12/27/05. We lived through the Roosevelt era, and we consider ourselves to be his socio-cultural & political heirs. We thank you for your contribution from the bottom of our hearts. ...
• Michael Markowski

  • March 17, 2011

  My dad worked for the CCC. It was the first money the family had in years. The CCC saved our family. Without that work, I would not be here today. God bless FDR! God bless the republic! Unlike the disciples of Hoover who have abused the Presidency, FDR knew that ...
• Eugene A. DeLorenzo

  • November 23, 2010

  I was one of two hundred or so kids who were given an opportunity to trade New York City for rural Idaho. In 1940, right after I turned 17, my father forced me to sign on with the CCC and I wound up on a troop train from New York ...