New Deal Today: Policy & Politics

News items that speak to the resurgence of interest in the New Deal as a touchstone for public policy and political action today.

• On Restoring a New Deal Mural

  • November 15, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  For more than seventy years, the murals of Frank W. Long have been hanging in post offices and other public buildings in the South and Midwest. “It was almost by accident that I became a painter of murals,” Long writes in Confessions of a Depression Muralist. In Confessions, Long blends read more
• CCC Stone Hut Rebuilt After Fire

  • November 8, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  The work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Vermont had a lasting impact on the state and its recreational infrastructure. Under the guidance of State Forester Perry Merrill, more than 40,000 individuals worked in Vermont’s 30 CCC camps, building new state parks, planting forests and, most notably, developing downhill read more
• "It Can't Happen Here" - Revival of a New Deal Play

  • October 5, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, tells the story of a demagogic, racist politician who wins the presidency and transforms the US into a brutal dictatorship. Within a year of its publication, the New Deal Federal Theatre Project adapted Lewis’s work for the stage, with opening nights synchronized in theaters read more
• Farewell to Curtis Roosevelt

  • September 30, 2016
  • Richard A Walker

  It was with great sadness that we learned this week of the passing of Curtis Roosevelt, grandson of FDR.  Curtis was a member of our Advisory Board and a stalwart supporter of the Living New Deal. Dick Walker visited Curtis and his wife, Marina, twice in the last two years at their read more
• Help Commemorate--and Circulate--WPA Art

  • September 19, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  Heartening news from St. Helena, California: Rep. Mike Thompson (D) is leading the charge for a stamp memorializing Lew Keller’s “Grape Pickers,” a WPA mural installed at the St. Helena Post Office in 1942. Thompson and four other Congressmembers recently drafted a letter to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (yes, there's a read more
• New Life for a WPA Building

  • August 30, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  Featured in my 1980 publication, Art Deco in Indianapolis, the stunning WPA-built Naval Armory, the work of architect Ben H. Bacon, has graced the bank of the non-navigable White River since before its dedication in October 1938. At the time I first wrote about it, the glorious Art Moderne building still read more
• When New Deal Art Doesn't Age Well

  • August 18, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  The Living New Deal is dedicated to preserving public works of art under threat from the increasing privatization of our society. We value New Deal art for its public-spirited ambitions, celebrations of local scenes, and representations of the "common man." But we cannot overlook the fact that artists are the product of their times and their read more
• New Deal Activist Kathy Flynn Honored As “Living Treasure”

  • July 26, 2016
  • Susan Ives

  Kathy Flynn, founder of the National New Deal Preservation Association (NNDPA), was recently named a “Living Treasure” for her work documenting and preserving New Deal history, sites, and artworks. Kathy, a long-time New Mexico resident, grew up in Texas amidst the Dust Bowl. Her public service career included working as a read more
• A Closer Look at New Deal Muralist Wendell Jones

  • July 13, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  A fixture of the mid-century Woodstock arts scene, Wendell Jones painted four murals for the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts. His works were admired by government officials and his peers alike, including Philip Guston.   From June to October 2014, the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum held the first major retrospective of Jones's read more
• Notes from the Field: The Living New Deal at the NPS Centennial

  • July 8, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  From June 21-23, landscape architects, historians, program designers, and other park professionals converged on Santa Fe for A Century of Design in the Parks, a symposium marking the centennial of the National Park Service. 150 people attended this sold out conference.   The Living New Deal was well represented. Our project's Founder, Gray read more