New Deal History: Revisited & Revised

News items that discuss and rethink the New Deal and its impact on America.

• Online Exhibit: “A Lens on FDR’s New Deal:” Photographs by Arthur Rothstein, 1935-1945

  • February 20, 2023

  Deborah Gardner, a founding member of the Living New Deal New York City Chapter’s Working Group, and Roosevelt House Historian, curated an exhibit titled, “A Lens on FDR’s New Deal” at the Roosevelt House. Find out more about the exhibition here. The bank that failed, Kansas (1936). ...
• Online Exhibit: The New Deal in New York City, 1933—1943 at the Roosevelt House

  • February 20, 2023

  Deborah Gardner, a founding member of the Living New Deal New York City Chapter's Working Group, and Roosevelt House Historian, curated an exhibit at the Roosevelt House. Find out more about the exhibition here. Family in tenement kitchen with coal burning stove (firebox on the right). The stand behind it ...
• New Dealish: FDR's Birthday Ball

  • January 30, 2023

  As president, FDR used his birthday, January 30, to advance his most important cause—raising awareness and money to eliminate polio, a disease FDR knew first hand. The first Birthday Ball was held in 1934; 4,376 communities joined together in 600 separate celebrations to raise more one million dollars for the Warm ...
• A Greenbelt Town Fights for Press Freedom

  • January 30, 2023

  In 1937, Theodora and John Murray were among 850 families selected to reside in an experimental city built and owned by the federal government. About a half-hour’s drive from Washington, DC., Greenbelt, Maryland is one of three planned residential communities conceived and developed by the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration (RA), which ...
• USS Potomac: FDR's Presidential Yacht

  • January 23, 2023

  The USS Potomac had an important role in the New Deal. It served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential yacht from 1936 until his death in 1945. The President held many work meetings with his cabinet members. “One frequent visitor was Frances Perkins, the secretary of labor.” Moored in Jack London ...
• New Dealish: Dining with the Roosevelts

  • October 25, 2022

  First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was accomplished in many pursuits, but, according to the New Yorker, other than scrambled eggs she couldn’t cook worth beans. To show solidarity with those suffering during the Great Depression, upon moving in to the White House Mrs. Roosevelt eschewed fancy meals for more humble fare. ...
• A Victory for Public Art

  • October 25, 2022

  WPA artist Victor Arnautoff’s controversial mural, “Life of Washington,” has been a lightning rod for controversy ever since it was completed in 1936. The 1600-foot fresco covering the walls and ceiling of the main entryway at San Francisco’s George Washington High School narrowly survived a recent challenge when some students and ...
• • October 1, 2022

  The Legacy of the New Deal in The Inglewood, CA Post Office The Daily Breeze has published a piece on the New Deal-funded bas-reliefs that have enlivened the Inglewood post office since the New Deal era. Read the whole piece here. A mahogany wood bas-relief by Archibald Garner, entitled "Centinella ...
• ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH ADVERSITY

  • September 26, 2022

  ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH ADVERSITY FDR was 39 years old when he was stricken with polio in 1921. Back then, people with disabilities were considered weak and unemployable. FDR’s opponents sought to exploit his inability to walk as a political vulnerability. He was rarely seen or photographed using a wheelchair. Yet, many believe ...
• A New Deal for the Blind

  • September 20, 2022

  Over fifty years before the Americans with Disabilities Act, the New Deal undertook the first major federal effort to aid citizens with physical and mental challenges. Between 1933 and 1943, mainly through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), thousands of New Deal works projects were directed at expanding, improving and staffing ...