Work Relief Programs Sites

Completed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1939, the Mary Rippon Outdoor theater is located on the University of Colorado campus between the Henderson Building (see post on Henderson Building) and the Hellems Art and Sciences Building.  Mary Rippon is believed to be the first female professor at the University of Colorado and the first woman in the United States to teach at a state university. The theater was designed by George Reynolds, a professor of English and one of the founders of the theater department. The theater was officially completed in 1939, but no plays were staged there until 1944.  Because...

Built in 1937 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the University's Henderson Building houses the Museum of Natural History.  The building cost nearly $200,000 to build, including furnishings.  In 1951, the building was named in honor of Judge Junius Henderson, appointed curator of the university museum in 1903.  The original layout of the building included archeology and biology halls on the ground floor, an art gallery and geology hall on the main floor; classrooms on the second floor; and laboratories, storerooms, and a darkroom on the top floor. The building is a representative work of noted architect Charles Z. Lauder, who designed...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a "gun storage shed" at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. The location and status of the facility is unknown to Living New Deal. WPA project, per a Department of Defense (DoD) survey: Gun Storage Shed at U. of Delaware; Project No. 165-1-24-46; Cost: $4,121.00; Sponsor: War Department

"The lava rock Andrews Amphitheatre at the University of Hawai'I (1935) was designed by architect Ralph Fishbourne with Professor Arthur R. Keller serving as the consulting engineer. The University covered the $5,213 cost for materials while the FERA paid for the labor."

The University of Houston's old Industrial Building, now known as the Technology Annex, was constructed with the assistance of the Work Projects Administration, a New Deal agency. Houston, a history and guide: "Most of the heavily wooded campus was made available through donations of the Settegast and Ben Taub estates, of 75 acres and 35 acres respectively. The school board purchased a small tract. On the grounds are 101 varieties of trees and shrubs. This campus in 1941 was being improved by a large-scale landscaping program designed by Hare and Hare of Kansas City, Missouri, in cooperation with the Work Projects...

"The University of Iowa Theatre Building was completed in 1936 during the depths of the Great Depression. How did a public university in Iowa, a state hard-hit by economic collapse and unemployment, ever see fit to build a theatre at such a time? The answers are unique to the time: “New Deal” politics, a surge of pride in regional art and arts, and E.C. Mabie, “the Boss,” who had big plans and the drive to see the plans through... The Federal Theatre Project (FTP), also part of Federal One, was formally announced in Iowa City at the National Theatre Conference in...

Taylor Stadium, also known as Rollie Greeno Track and Al Cassel Field, was built in 1934-35 by the CWA: "The stadium was originally named Roosevelt Stadium, but later re-named for Frank B. Taylor, long time Dean of the College and a sports enthusiast. It was a Civilian Works Administration project of the depression years." The stadium was renovated in 1985 and again in 1999.

According to WPA records in the National Archives, WPA labor was used in 1935-41 to: "Make improvements at the University of Maryland…by constructing agricultural buildings including barns, silos, storehouses, sheds, and similar structures, and performing appurtenant work; Make improvements at the University of Maryland at College Park…by constructing modern buildings, making additions to and remodeling existing buildings; Construct and improve buildings and facilities at the University of Maryland…includes constructing apiary, cottages, retaining walls, gateways, roads, curbs, parking spaces, and walks; installing plumbing, heating, and electrical facilities, underground electric lines, telephone cables, and campus lights; excavating; backfilling; landscaping; planting; seeding; Construct...

The UMN Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC) is the primary research and demonstration forest for the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, currently a research and outreach center (ROC) for the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences. The Cloquet Forestry Center was called the Cloquet Forest Experiment Station when the CCC was active in providing skilled labor to the University. Projects completed at the CFC by some of the men stationed at Big Lake Camp S79 from July 1933 to June 1937 include: - the construction of five and a half miles of fire break and truck trails. - brushing and improvement of 15...

"The laboratory...was designed and built under the direction of a dedicated individual, Lorenz G. Straub. Straub had been a Freeman Fellow and observed several laboratories in Germany during the year of his fellowship. He came to the University in 1930 and promptly set to work to establish his own laboratory. His vision came to fruition through a WPA grant to the University of Minnesota and construction started in 1936. Straub came to be known as the "River Doctor" for his many studies at SAFL on several aspects of river engineering. The Laboratory building lies on the Falls of St. Anthony...

The CWA and ERA completed repairs and improvements in state institutions across Mississippi in 1934 and 1935. At the University of Mississippi, the interior and exterior of two women's dorms were painted, music hall and campus residence were repaired and repainted, and six other buildings improved. In addition, a new warehouse was constructed, fence, walks and press booths for the athletic field added, drainage structures installed across campus, 525 feet of sidewalk laid, and a dorm destroyed by fire was razed and material salvaged. The total expenditure for the work was $24,043.23.

Constructed primarily with Works Progress Administration funding, the University of Mississippi built 22 vernacular cottage-style houses on a new street named Faculty Row in 1939 (Walton, 2008). The three-bedroom houses ranged from 1200 to 1600 square feet, and were sided with clapboard. Each had a garage or carport (Mississippi Department of Archives and History). Only one of the houses remains on campus at this time. Others were demolished in 2007 according to MDAH. Twenty-one faculty houses were relocated to establish a development for affordable housing, however, according to the Lafayette County appraisal records, dates on those houses indicate construction in 1955...

Leavell Hall, was initially built as a men's dormitory housing 68 students. It is one of six dormitories constructed on campus with PWA funds during 1938. All six buildings remain and are in current use, or slated for renovation and resumption of use. Leavell was named for Dr. Richard Leavell, professor of philosophy and political economy from 1890-1909. "...conditions in Mississippi were worse than at any time since the Civil War (quoted in Harry Hopkins, 1936, Spending to Save: The Complete Story of Relief). With a state government in bankruptcy, Mississippi welcomed the federal funds that finally began to trickle down...

A project grant of $20,000 supported the construction of an Olympic-sized swimming pool west of the gymnasium in July 1936.

"Congress granted permission for universities to use Works Progress Administration funds for fraternal housing. The Sigma Alpha Epsilon House, occupied in the fall of 1935, was the first built on Fraternity Row after the ban on fraternities and sororities was lifted. It burned in 1953" (Walton, 2008, p. 160).

The concrete structure football stadium was begun in 1937 with a capacity for 18,000 (Sansing) or 24,000 (Oxford Campus and University Buildings). The new stadium was proposed as a WPA project in 1936, and completed in 1941. The west side was completed in 1938 (Walton).

"Three New Hampshire artists were hired to paint a series of murals for the University Library . These murals were painted under direction of Omer T. Lassonde, State Supervisor of the New Hampshire WPA Art Project. Today, the one remaining mural is in Room 141 of Hamilton-Smith Hall" (https://www.izaak.unh.edu). Each artist also wrote about his or her own work on the murals. Selections from these texts follow: The mural "Farming in New Hampshire" by George Lloyd was in the reserve room. Lloyd wrote: "This is a mural on farming in New Hampshire, It deals with the four seasons of the year—...

"The recreational area known as Lewis Fields at the University of New Hampshire was begun in December of 1933 and finished in September of 1936. It was named for President Edward M. Lewis. The facility was built using funds from the various federal relief agencies set up to help alleviate unemployment during the Great Depression of the 1930's."  (https://www.izaak.unh.edu) Lewis Fields includes "six fields for football, soccer, and lacrosse, four baseball diamonds, a cinder track with a 220-yard straightaway, pits and runways for jumping and vaulting, fourteen composition and six clay tennis courts, concrete bleachers seating 1,750 spectators at baseball games...

This outdoor, one acre, "flow-through" pool was constructed by the WPA in 1937-38 on the UNH campus near the center of town. It has been a popular site ever since. This summer, the university announced plans to close the pool, but there is an ongoing, and growing effort to preserve this historic site.

"Albuquerque is home to scores of WPA buildings and works. Among the most prolific are the following- ... John Gaw Meem designed both Scoles Hall and Zimmerman Library on the campus of the University of New Mexico (the corner of University and Central). Both have undergone redesign and restoration, but still carry many of the architects innovative design features. Also on the campus of UNM, the Anthropology building is from that era, and contains three large murals by Joseph Imhof. The Old Albuquerque Municipal Airport (2920 Yale SE) is a Pueblo revival style two-story building that stands in the shadow of the Albuquerque...

"Albuquerque is home to scores of WPA buildings and works. Among the most prolific are the following- ... John Gaw Meem designed both Scoles Hall and Zimmerman Library on the campus of the University of New Mexico (the corner of University and Central). Both have undergone redesign and restoration, but still carry many of the architects innovative design features. Also on the campus of UNM, the Anthropology building is from that era, and contains three large murals by Joseph Imhof. The Old Albuquerque Municipal Airport (2920 Yale SE) is a Pueblo revival style two-story building that stands in the shadow of the Albuquerque...

  The Public Works Administration funded the construction of the Zimmerman Library at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The Zimmerman Library website describes the history of the New Deal structure: "Library collections continued to grow and in 1936 UNM James Fulton Zimmerman secured Public Works Administration funding for campus construction that included $370,000 for a new library building. The impressive facility was designed in the Pueblo Revival Style by John Gaw Meem. Miss Shelton turned the first shovelful of earth at the building site on December 2, 1936 and the new library was opened on April 1, 1938. As before, students, faculty, and...

Multiple New Deal agencies, including the Public Works Administration (P.W.A.), Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.), were involved in dramatically developing and transforming what was then the North Texas State Teacher's College (now University of North Texas - Denton TX) in Denton. Federal assistance was responsible for several new buildings on campus in addition to other infrastructural developments.

In 1935 when a baseball park was constructed near McArthur Court, plans got under way to create formal gates and entrances. The park was named Howe Field for Herbert Crombie Howe, an English professor and athletics supporter. Early on, Fred Cuthbert, UO's landscape architect, and Orion B. Dawson, blacksmith, were involved in the designs. Dawson was concurrently working on iron projects at Timberline Lodge. Funding for the project came from the Works Projects Administration, several UO classes, the Soldiers' Memorial Fund, and the Associated Students of the University of Oregon. The gates, sometimes known as the Soldiers' Memorial Gates, also...

The main campus of the University of Puerto Rico was founded in 1903 in Río Piedras.  Part of the campus, including the athletic field, was built with the help of the PRRA. "In 1924 the Chicago firm of urbanists Bennett, Parsons and Frost were contacted to design a master plan for the future development of the University. It wasn’t until 1935, with the establishment of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) and the large sum of federal funds that it invested for public works in Puerto Rico, that the partial design and construction of the so-called Plan Parson began. Under the supervision...

The Civil Works Administration and the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration built the Radio and Hurricane Research Laboratory, at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras.

Several New Deal murals were painted for URI's Green Hall (the library and administration building), but they have since been lost.

Edwards Hall contains six murals painted by Gino Conti, located in Edwards Hall, the main auditorium of the University of Rhode Island. The murals were created in 1941 under the WPA's Federal Art Project. They were covered over with sheetrock during a renovation during the 1960s. Until that sheetrock was removed in 2010 in preparation for another renovation, they were thought to have been destroyed. Restoration of the murals was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and re-unveiled at Edwards Hall on October 3, 2011. The Providence Journal of March 16, 1941 stated, “Of the two largest panels, one...

Multiple projects were "planned, staked out and supervised" by West Hartford's Engineering Department in 1935-6 utilizing Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) and/or Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) labor. One such project involved storm sewer construction "across the St. Joseph College property north of Asylum Avenue."

The University of South Carolina was the beneficiary of a large influx of New Deal funds from various agencies throughout the Great Depression. In "The Prosperity of the Depression," the university's website writes the following with regard to this era of the campus's history: "It is interesting to note that almost as many buildings were built during the Depression as during the period 1908-1930. A world economic crisis occurred in 1929, the harbinger of the Great Depression. Even before that, in 1927, state appropriations for permanent improvements had ended. On the one hand, the Great Depression meant severe financial constraints for the...

The State Teachers College in Hattiesburg received funding from ERA in 1934 and 1935 for improvements and repair to several buildings on campus. The school received $28,532.89 for repairing the hospital building, redecorating the interior of the library, renovating four campus cottages, placing flood-lights on the athletic field, refinishing floors in the president's home, and enlargements and alteration of the demonstration school gymnasium along with brick veneering of the exterior. the library was enlarged and improved. At least two of the buildings (president's home and demonstration gymnasium) are extant.

Plant Hall was formerly known as the Tampa Bay Hotel. It was built in the late 19th century. By the 1930s it was in disrepair until the WPA restored the building and converted it into use by the University of Tampa. One wing of Plant Hall now houses the Henry B. Plant Museum.

The University of Texas opened on September 15, 1883 with the completion of its Victorian style main building. The university was funded by a combination of state appropriations and annual distributions from the Permanent University Fund (PUF), an endowment of 2.1 million acres of land in West Texas. Initially, the PUF provided minimal income from leasing the land for grazing cattle, but when the first oil was discovered on the land on May 28, 1923, the university was set to receive a windfall. However, it was not until 1930, that all the details were worked out on how the money...

Multiple building construction projects were undertaken at the University of Utah during the Great Depression. The old library (now Crocker Science Center) and Einar Nielsen Fieldhouse are both Public Works Administration (PWA) projects that are still in use. Carlson Hall, another PWA construction, has since been demolished. The present status of a fourth building, the Seismograph Building, is presently unknown to Living New Deal. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was involved with the creation of artwork at the old library. From a 2013 retrospective on Carlson Hall, the women's dormitory: "After bequest to the U, the University administration approached the...

The National Youth Administration (NYA) renovated and remodeled the south wing of Converse Hall at the University of Vermont. The newly remodeled wing served as cooperative living quarters for male students. Pictured with the NYA sign is Lee Arthur, the supervisor of the project.

A WPA press release from Dec. 1937 stated: "The finishing touches to the creation of what is said will be the most beautiful college campus in tho west will begin this week with the opening operations of a new Works Progress Administration project. The plans designed, under a series of projects of which this is the culminating one, will give the University of Washington a campus second to none in boauty of landscape, according to the university buildings and grounds engineers. The WPA grant for the present project is the largest single federal allotment to the university and, according to present estimates,...

Men of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked from 1934 to 1941 on the Arboretum of University of Wisconsin Madison, providing the majority of the labor needed to establish the ecological communities that make up the Arboretum. This was accomplished by excavating and moving land to return farmland to it’s natural condition as well as reintroducing native plants. Between 1900-1920 there were many civic leaders of the fast-growing city of Madison, Wisconsin interested in returning the countryside to it’s natural glory. These leaders recognized the importance of the conservation of open spaces for the citizens of the city. To ensure the...

James Watrous painted a tempera-on-gesso mural cycle consisting of nine 6' tall panels, called "The Story of Paul Bunyan,"  in the UW Memorial Student Union. The works were painted in 1935 with funds provided by the federal government, and given the date the murals were probably commissioned by the Federal Arts Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration.  That needs to be confirmed. The murals used to hang in the Paul Bunyan Room, but have disappeared. 

The Works Progress Administration constructed a university laboratory building in Centennial, Albany County. The camp had been founded near Mullen Creek in 1935 by a CCC camp (possibly F-36). The University of Wyoming later used the facility as a recreation camp. During WWII, the camp was used by the Army and Air Force. The facility has been demolished. The former location of this facility is unknown to the Living New Deal.

The Works Progress Administration built the university Main Hall east wing in Centennial, Albany County. The camp had been founded near Mullen Creek in 1935 by a CCC camp (possibly F-36). The University of Wyoming later used the facility as a recreation camp. During WWII, the camp was used by the Army and Air Force. The facility has been demolished. The former location and condition of this facility is unknown to the Living New Deal.