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.

• A CCC Park Reopens in Missouri

  • June 7, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  Jensen Point, a Pacific, Missouri, park overlooking famed Route 66, has reopened to the public. The site, constructed by Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 1770 in 1939, has been closed for the past 25 years, during which time it fell into disrepair. A recent blog post for the Washington Missourian details read more
• Praise from the Austin American-Statesman

  • May 16, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  Ken Herman’s “Old stuff from the New Deal” (Austin American-Statesman, Friday, May 13, 2016) makes a case for The Living New Deal’s relevance to communities around the country. (Larry Moore, our Texas-based Research Associate,  also gets some well-deserved recognition in this opinion piece.) Herman draws from our site to showcase the read more
• Remembering--and Saving--the Mothers Building Murals

  • May 4, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  "The first thing that stopped me in my tracks was the two mosaics from 1934 that flank the building’s original doors. Then I stepped in and saw the flowered wood paneling. Finally I lifted my head and saw the faded glorious interior murals by two important San Francisco artists — read more
• Announcing a New Biography of Henry Alsberg

  • May 3, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  Henry Alsberg, a journalist with a passion for social justice, directed the WPA’s Federal Writers' Project. Under his guidance, thousands of unemployed writers were hired and over one thousand books published, many of the utmost importance to preserving historical voices (as in the WPA Slave Narratives) and to representing America to read more
• Edith Hamlin and Me

  • April 19, 2016
  • Lisa Thompson

  After I organized Coit Tower’s 50th anniversary celebration in San Francisco in 1984, Edith Ann Hamlin and I became good friends. During the next six years, I often visited her at her studio in the Excelsior District of San Francisco. Hamlin was 82 then and had been part art of the read more
• Bernie Sanders and Historical Memory

  • April 12, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  In running for President, Sen. Bernie Sanders has compelled Americans to rethink some long-standing political bromides of the neoliberal era, such as the evils of government action and universal health insurance. But how radical is Bernie, really? As Sanders and others have pointed out, he’s basically a New Deal Liberal. It’s a sign of read more
• Critically Commemorating The Tennessee Valley Authority

  • March 18, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  America is crumbling. And in our current political climate, solutions to this problem will be hard-fought. In a review of five recent studies of our national infrastructure, Elizabeth Drew notes, “today no great vision guides our policies for building and maintaining the arteries of transportation—ports, dams, and bridges—as well as read more
• An "impassioned conversation across generations": Oral Histories of the New Deal

  • March 7, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  A vital link to the past, oral history--"preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events"--reflects how individuals of different backgrounds experience capital-H History. (In this case, government programs and policies.) Oral histories compel us to go beyond official rhetoric and see how individual read more
• A Call to Artists… Building Bridges: A New Concept for Bay Bridge Steel

  • January 27, 2016
  • Harvey Smith

  The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, on New York City’s Roosevelt Island, is sited across the East River from the United Nations. Why not a memorial to New Deal workers and artists on Treasure Island in San Francisco where the U.N. was founded?   The San Francisco Arts Commission has announced read more
• New Study of Ben Shahn's Murals a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards

  • January 24, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  Ben Shahn’s celebrated New Deal murals can be found throughout the United States. Born in Lithuania, trained under Diego Rivera, Shahn’s work for the federal government depicted a diverse nation of workers, dedicated to the twin aims of progress and justice. (Appropriately, his mural for the recently-sold Bronx General Post Office, painted read more