Education and Health Sites

Originally constructed as Hygeia Hall in 1936, what is now the Institutional Development building at T.W.U. was constructed with federal Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) funds. The cost of construction was approximately $40,000. Hygeia Hall served as the "student health center and the infirmary. Students were generally admitted when their illness was deemed contagious enough that quarantine was needed."

Before the PWA addition, the (much smaller) building was an elementary school, first built in 1909-1910 as the A.J. Chambers School (for white students), then it became the East Eighteenth Street Colored School in 1931. The school was enlarged in 1936-37 as a PWA project, converting it to the I.M. Terrell High School. "Under the PWA building program, the building was significantly expanded in 1936-37 and became the new home of I. M. Terrell High School. The architect was Clyde H. Woodruff and the contractor was Harry B. Friedman. In 1955-56, fourteen classrooms, a gymnasium, and a cafeteria were added to...

What's now the Dyker Heights Intermediate School was constructed during the mid-1930s as a Public Works Administration (PWA) project.

The red brick gymnasium and classroom buildings were constructed by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938-1939. The buildings originally belonged to Gray High School. Today, the gymnasium is used by Idabel Middle School. However, the gymnasium was rebuilt following a fire in the past year (2017). The extent of the reconstruction and how much of what we see today is original cannot be determined. Although the one-story brick classroom building still exists, it is not in use. It has been boarded up.    

Illini Union, the Student Union building of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, "was dedicated on November 1, 1941 as the campus's home for student organizations, meetings, and student programs and activities, replacing University Hall. It was constructed in cooperation with the University of Illinois Foundation, which secured funding for the construction through a $525,820 Public Works Administration grant and a $656,000 loan which was later repaid through student fees." (Wikipedia)

Fourteen boys of the federal National Youth Administration (NYA) built a tennis court and graded a baseball field at Trenton, New Jersey's old Immaculate Conception High School. The exact location of this former school is unknown to Living New Deal, though it was possibly located at 544 Chestnut Avenue.

In the 1930s through the early 1940s, Indiana University's Bloomington campus was expanded through New Deal funding. The construction of the IU Auditorium (formerly the Hall of Music) began in 1938 with PWA funding. The Auditorium is built with Southern Indiana limestone and houses Thomas Hart Benton's "Century of Progress" murals.

Then known as Indiana State Teachers College, Indiana University of Pennsylvania benefited during the Great Depression from a large construction project enabled by the federal Public Works Administration (PWA). The PWA provided a $226,000 grant for the project, whose final cost was $700,440. Construction occurred between February 1938 and June 1939. (PWA Docket No. 1820.) Three buildings were constructed on the campus, including an auditorium and dining hall addition. The auditorium is now known as Fisher Auditorium. The present status of the other structures is unknown to the Living New Deal.

The Industrial and Training School in Columbia housed juvenile offenders from the early 1900s through 2008 when it was closed. Begun in March 1934, the state legislature appropriated $200,000 to supplement CWA funds for building repairs on Mississippi institutions. Work was delayed due to delay in the CWA funds. Approval was eventually received to use ERA funds. The largest expenditure was for the Industrial and Training School at Columbia, where $49,783.98 was spent on buildings and grounds improvement. Work included rebuilding the water supply system, new reservoir, repair and painting of water tank. Repairs were completed on Franklin Hall and...

Federal Public Works Administration Docket No. NY 2754 entailed the construction of two school buildings in Jamestown, New York: the new Jamestown High School and the Industrial Arts Building, which was located to the school's southeast. Modern imagery suggests that the Industrial Arts Building has since been demolished, perhaps during the process of expanding the facilities of the high school.

The Civil Works Administration funded improvements at the Industrial Home School for White Children, between 1933-1934. The structure appears to be today’s Guy Manson Recreation Center, but very little remains (see here and here). “It can be reported that during the year much very important work was accomplished by the Civil Works Administration. The roadway from Wisconsin Avenue around the buildings was completed; the large porches were repaired and painted; two large store rooms were constructed and a considerable area of the ground graded and converted into gardens with provision for irrigation. Anew tennis court has almost been finished, and suitable fences...

What was then known as the New Jersey Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth was improved by the National Youth Administration (NYA) ca. 1936. The site is presently used as a juvenile penal institution. "In Burlington County 48 colored boys are working at the Bordentown Industrial School for Colored Youth, constructing four tennis courts and keeping the grounds in condition."

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction the Infirmary Building, Missouri State Hospital Number 3 in Nevada, Vernon County. The Infirmary was part of a larger program in the state of Missouri that sought to rehabilitate overcrowded healthcare and penal facilities. Funding for the program came from a state bond that was matched by a PWA grant of eight million dollars. The program employed 34 architectural firms. The building was designed by the Kansas City architecture firm Caroll and Dean. A plaque located at the entrance and bearing the date 1937 reads, “Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works Project Number 5131-1.”...

The Public Works Administration contributed approximately $220,000 toward the construction of sewers, paving, sidewalks, and school additions between 1939 and 1940 in Fairbanks, Alaska.

In November 1935, federal Public Works Administration (PWA) Administrator Harold Ickes allotted $237,200.00 to the Hastings State Hospital for three units in the institution’s building plans. Together with the $290,000.00 provided by the state legislature, the allotment raised the total amount of funds to be spent to $527,200.00 for the construction of a new hospital building, a building for the night watch, and a sewage disposal plant. Kenneth Gedney was hired to be the architect for these improvements. Bids were called in December 1935. The bid for excavating the basement of the night watch building was given to F. C. Hageman...

The fine arts building was reconstructed in 1936, including: removing brickwork to make the building more earthquake safe, installing new columns and beams to carry vertical loads, building a new fireproof starway, rearranging windows to bring in more light, updating the heating system. Most of the construction was done by CWA and SERA labor.

"Located on N. Broadway in the small town of Inola, this is a T-shaped, 10-room school house and auditorium constructed by the WPA in 1940. A bronze shield on the building documents this. "The school faces Broadway, with a perpendicular auditorium extension to the rear. Construction is of cut, coursed and rusticated native stone. There are seven bays, separated by stone columns, raised above the roofline. Windows are set in groups of one and three, with brick surrounds and have been replaced with fixed panes. The front entrance has double doors and sidelights slightly recessed under a stepped parapet, with low...

The Brooklyn school now known as Mark Twain / I.S. 239 was constructed with the assistance of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The building is still in use today.

The PWA provided funding for the construction of the Iowa City High School, now City High, in 1937-1938. From Wikipedia: City High School was built through the Public Works Projects, one of many other programs formed in Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal package. City High would become the second high school to be built in Iowa City, as the older one was becoming overcrowded as the population of the city increased. To determine the new location of the school, Iowa City residents had to vote whether to build the school in a central location, closer to the existing high school, or...

Iowa Lakeside Laboratory was built by CCC Camp BFI in 1936 in the vicinity of Milford IA. It is still serving as a laboratory. 

This historic Iowa Tribe Community Building was constructed in 1940 as a New Deal project. It is "one of the only extant resources built by the Civilian Conservation Corps – Indian Division in Kansas." NRHP nomination form: "The Iowa Tribe Community Building ... is located in northeast Brown County on the reservation of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. ... The one-and-a-half-story limestone building exhibits elements of the Rustic and Colonial Revival architectural styles, which were popular during the New Deal era. It was constructed as part of a project of the Civilian Conservation Corps - Indian Division (CCC-ID), a...

Then Bath Memorial Hospital, in 1935 Ira Davenport Memorial Hospital opened "in a renovated 3-story building, funded by a local bond issue and a Federal grant." The Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) supplied a $61,022 grant for the project, whose total cost was $135,674. Construction occurred between Jan. 1936 and Jan. 1937. PWA Docket No. NY W1342.

Located at the southwest corner of U.S. 59 and S 550 Rd., a few miles east of Afton, Oklahoma, the former Iron Post school building was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938. Built of uncut native stone, the 73' x 26' building is now privately owned.

Among the numerous WPA-constructed buildings in Bozeman designed by Fred Willson was the Irving School located at 611 South 8th Avenue.

"Irving School, located at 12th and Sycamore in Duncan is currently a Pre-K Center and Head Start program. The School was a WPA project, built in 1935 as a two-story school, with an appropriation of $23,576. In 1966, the second story was removed and additional construction was completed on the first floor... The Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory provides the following information on this building: IRVING SCHOOL, DUNCAN, OK, WAS ORIGINALLY A TWO STORY BUILDING. OF THE WPA GRADESCHOOLS (IRVING, LEE, EMERSON), IRVING IS THE ONLY ONE USING THE ORIGINAL BUILDING, THE OTHERS WERE RAZED IN THE MIDDLE 60'S WHEN NEW BUILDINGS WERE BUILT....

The Irving School was a grammar school in the City of Hornell, New York. After it burned in 1938, it was rebuilt the following year with labor provided through the Works Progress Administration. The 1939 building was incorporated into the current Hornell High School when that was built. The address provided is the modern address for the high school.

Washington Irving STEAM Magnet School (originally Verdugo Road Junior High School) in Los Angeles, CA, was constructed by the Public Works Administration (PWA). The Northeast Los Angeles River Revitalization Area Report describes the school as being built in 1936-37; a PWA plaque on the auditorium, however, bears the date 1939. The original buildings include the main building, a cafeteria, a gymnasium with two bas-relief sculptures near the roof, and an auditorium containing a Federal Art Project (FAP) mural by Ivan Bartlett. All these structures are still standing. The school is one of many schools in the LAUSD school system which were damaged...

A Public Works Administration grant helped fund the construction of an addition to O’Keeffe Elementary School at 70th Street and South Merrill Avenue in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. The two-story, nearly 10,000-square-foot addition was designed by Board of Education architect John Charles Christensen and provided eight new classrooms. The architectural style of the new addition was patterned after that of the existing school building and formed a short wing at the northern end of the original school building, which opened in 1925. Construction work on the addition began in April 1936 and was completed in time for the start of...

J. P. Elder Middle School Annex (originally part of the North Fort Worth High School), was one of the school district's existing schools that received landscaping by the CWA/WPA during the New Deal. At this school, a lengthy sandstone retaining wall and a terrace were constructed by the CWA in 1935. The terrace included a fountain that had three cast stone lion heads. The landscape features were designed by Hare and Hare and constructed under the supervision of the city's park department.

"This high school occupies a site of 35 acres. Large play areas, 7 fields for games, 6 tennis courts, and 12 handball courts, as well as a stadium seating 2,626 and bleachers seating 1,000, are part of the plant. The building accommodates 2,500 pupils. The academic, commercial, and science departments are in the wings on the left; and the shops, domestic science, and art departments on the right, with the auditorium and gymnasium between them. There are 52 standard and 30 special classrooms, a library seating 250, and a cafeteria with a capacity of 625. The construction is fireproof. Exterior walls are...

"The new Magnolia School replaces a four-room frame structure which had served the school district for 50 years and which was heated by stoves and lacked proper sanitary accommodations. The new building is one story in height, with provision in the basement for the heating plant, and provides four classrooms and an auditorium with a stage. The construction is semifireproof. The exterior walls are red brick backed up with hollow tile and trimmed with wood and limestone. The first floor is a concrete slab and the roof construction is wood covered with slate. The project was completed in June 1935 at a construction...

An addition to the J.H.S. 80 school building in the Bronx was constructed in 1935-36 as a Public Works Administration (PWA) project. The  PWA funds were allotted in 1934-36, and the school opened in 1936.

The Emergency Administration of Public Works funded the construction of the Auditorium/Gymnasium at J.U. Blacksher High School.

Green Bay's Jackson Elementary School was constructed in 1937-8 with federal Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) funds. The P.W.A. supplied an $81,000 grant for the project, whose total cost was $208,266. PWA Docket No. WI 1326

Completed in 1938, these concrete-based football stadium bleachers were constructed in a former quarry that furnished rock to many local New Deal projects. The stadium is still called "The Pit."

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the Jackson School in Pauls Valley OK. Contributor note: "Jackson Elementary School is located at 1015 S. Walnut and is an active elementary school today. It has an Art Deco theme, which was rare for the architect Albert S. Ross. The school is a one story buff brick building constructed in an L-shape, with a flat roof. Later additions to the school have been built at each end, to closely resemble the original. The windows are set in triples with three large panes each. Four belts in darker brick run above and below the windows, and "through"...

James A. Foshay Learning Center (formerly Junior High School), which opened in 1925, was rebuilt with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) between 1934 and 1935. In January 1934, the PWA allocated $9,380,000 to the Los Angeles Unified School District for the rehabilitation of schools damaged in the severe 1933 Long Beach earthquake.  One hundred and thirty schools would benefit from the system-wide loan and grant, with 2,500 men to be employed in rehabilitation work over 21 months. Upon receiving news of the PWA allocation, Board of Education member Arthur Eckman told the Los Angeles Times, “I am sure that every member...

1 of 27 schools in Pasadena CA that the New Deal was involved in rebuilding, demolishing, or reinforcing after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. 5 photos available at the Pasadena Museum of History depict the demolition of the school by the WPA and 1 photo depicting a PWA contractor starting excavation for the new structure. Listed as "Project #1 B3 225" "Garfield school demolition was started by February 1, 1935. The school building proper was practically demolished by March 5th, 1935. The ensuing time was occupied with the removal, sorting and salvaging of materials. Average working force - 30 men" 1888 built as the California...

Concrete, 3 stories, for 1600 students.