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.

• Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and the New Deal

  • January 12, 2016
  • Gabriel Milner

  The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has been much in the news lately.  It is the site of an armed standoff between a group of western ranchers and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The conservative militants and their supporters are angry at the government's perceived mistreatment of two local ranchers at the hands of read more
• Minnesota Memorial Honors Sacrifices of CCC Men

  • January 8, 2016
  • Natalie Heneghan

  On the west bank of Lake Phalen, on the east side of St. Paul, sits an unassuming monument honoring the men who died while working for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The brainchild of Company 4727 Educational Advisor Edward Mueller, the memorial is a mounded collection of hundreds of stones read more
• Come Visit a Lost Civilization (New Deal Los Angeles)

  • December 3, 2015
  • Gabriel Milner

  Do you live in Los Angeles, or are you planning to visit? If so, Andrew Laverdiere invites you to investigate the legacy of the most interesting period in modern history in the remains of stone walls, roads, golf courses, bridges, and other physical remains of the work programs that kept Americans read more
• The New Deal's Bay Area Legacies

  • November 4, 2015
  • Gabriel Milner

  A reminder: When you visit the San Francisco Bay Area, you visit “a landscape transformed by the New Deal.” Writing in this month’s journal of the Association of American Geographers in anticipation of the organization’s meeting in San Francisco this spring, Alex Tarr details the extent to which this is read more
• A Daughter Remembers: The Work and Lessons of Muralist Richard Correll

  • October 30, 2015
  • Gabriel Milner

  Leslie Correll writes from Oakland about her father:   Richard V. (Dick) Correll was on the Federal Art Project (FAP) in Seattle, specializing in printmaking, but he also produced drawings, gouache paintings, and two murals for a high school in Arlington, Washington. He is especially noted for his suite of prints created for the read more
• Make the Old Santa Fe Trail Building a National Monument

  • October 26, 2015
  • Gabriel Milner

  Between 1937 and 1939, Native American and Latino New Mexicans employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) constructed the Old Santa Fe Trail building, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. Made of materials drawn from a nearby CCC camp, the site is a testament to local craftsmanship and the read more
• The CCC and the Battle of Droop Mountain

  • October 14, 2015
  • Brent McKee

  The afternoon started out fairly quietly, other than a young boy occasionally shouting, “Newspapers for sale! Read all about it!” Then, a little after 1:00pm, a canon shot thundered out, startling the onlookers and marking the beginning of the battle. For the next half-hour, Union and Confederate bullets tore through read more
• Notes from the Field: Teaching New Deal Archaeology

  • October 11, 2015
  • Gabriel Milner

  Glory-June Greiff writes us from Indiana:   We all know that the New Deal changed the landscape. It also preserved it, celebrating America's history even as it was making history. Taking office in 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pledged a New Deal for America by swiftly enacting a plethora of alphabet agencies, read more
• The Myth of USPS Debt and the Fate of New Deal Public Spaces

  • October 5, 2015
  • Gabriel Milner

  Over at Jacobin Magazine, R. H. Lossin has a scathing takedown of recent attempts to sell off an important piece of our democratic heritage. "Why the Post Office Matters" presents the myth of USPS debt for what it is: A myth, "manufactured” by special interests intent on privatizing post offices, subcontracting their various services to companies like read more
• Prof. Douglas Brinkley On FDR, “Forester in Chief”

  • September 28, 2015
  • Gabriel Milner

  Five days before Pearl Harbor, and anticipating American involvement in a world war, Franklin Roosevelt forced the Tenth Mountain Division to abandon a $25 million training site in Henry's Lake, Idaho--because the site was also a breeding ground for trumpeter swans. "The Army must find a different nesting place!," FDR wrote read more