The Living New Deal recently added the 17,000th New Deal site to our website! This achievement is testimony to the diligent, unseen work of our volunteer National Associates and staff researchers. Their work is the foundation of everything we do. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Along the way, we’ve discovered some New Deal achievements we weren’t aware of, such as its contributions to the nation’s technological progress.
The additions to the website include #16,999, B&O Railroad Locomotive No. 50, the first diesel locomotive built in the United States, which was financed by the Public Works Administration. The PWA’s program to modernize the railroads was hailed at the time as a revolution in rail transport. Even more impressive is site #17,000, the University of Pennsylvania’s Differential Analyzer. Contrary to the misconception that all New Deal relief work was manual labor, this analog computer, built between 1934-35 by the Civil Works Administration and Federal Emergency Relief Administration, was an essential stepping stone to the world’s first digital computer, the ENIAC, built in the same lab a decade later.
The New Deal’s imprint was nationwide. We continue to surpass milestones for the number of New Deal discoveries per state, such as in Oregon (200), Kansas (200), Wyoming (250) and Texas (1,000). Shout-outs to Living New Deal team members Judith Kenny in Portland, Oregon; Barbara Pendleton in Kansas City, Kansas; Susan Klein in Fort Worth, Texas; Evan Kalish for his sleuthing in Wyoming, Texas, New Mexico and South Carolina; and Richard Walker for recent discoveries in Arizona and Oregon. Our thanks to Brent McKee, who submitted sites 16,999 and 17,000. And to Elena Ion who does the yeo(wo)man work entering the site data sent to us from everywhere.