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On the Road With the New Deal
A new travel series featured on our website and authored by Fern L. Nesson, our Massachusetts National Associate, will take us on a tour of 1930s America. Titled “Travels with the American Guide Series, A WPA Federal Writers’ Project,” Fern L. Nesson’s series is a collection of essays and photographs that use the WPA’s American Guide Series as a contemporary guide. A writer and photographer with a distinguished career in law, Fern has exhibited her photography work in the United States and Europe, most recently in Arles and Provence. The travel essays showcase her spectacular photography work and engaging storytelling. Fern is the first author to reflect on the cultural landscapes of present-day America through the eyes of the federal authors writing in service of the New Deal. Following the north-south itinerary suggested by the American Guide Series, Fern has begun her journey in Maine, traveling toward Massachusetts on scenic Route One. In the upcoming weeks, we will be launching an entirely new website section titled “On the Road with the New Deal” that will feature Fern's travel series as well as New Deal travel posts from our regular contributors.
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Arnautoff Mural Unveiled in Richmond
While the San Francisco School Board plans to paint over Victor Arnautoff’s “Life of Washington” mural, the Richmond Museum of History seeks to restore another one of the artist’s New Deal era works. Titled “Richmond Industrial City,” the mural had been missing for decades. Between 1941 to 1976, it was on display at the Richmond Post Office. The mural was removed and stored due to renovations, but soon after that, the crate in which it was stored went missing. Earlier this year, it was rediscovered, and the art will be unveiled at a gala on September 12 organized by the Richmond Museum of History. The event has a dual purpose—to raise funds to restore art while also celebrating the work of the artist. “Richmond Industrial City,” captures everyday life in 1930s Richmond, depicting a diverse, blue-collar community. Painted in the Social Realism style that characterized much of New Deal art, the mural is one of 11 public artworks created by Victor Arnautoff in the San Francisco Bay Area during the Great Depression. Donations to restore the mural and gala tickets are available here.
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Where in the World is Evan: Puerto Rico
This month, we visit San Juan, Puerto Rico, focusing on the barrio of San Juan Antiguo/Isleta de San Juan. Old San Juan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is chock-full of history, with massive structures dating to early 16th century Spanish settlements. Multiple New Deal agencies were involved with the renovation and restoration of many historic fortresses and buildings, including much of what would later become San Juan National Historic Site. Additional buildings on the Isleta de San Juan were built during the Depression era as part of New Deal efforts, and Evan photographed several locations earlier this year: the distinctive Jose V. Toledo Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, which dates to 1914 but received a six-story addition in 1938-40; the American Red Cross (Cruz Roja Americana) Building, built by the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration, an arm of Federal Emergency Relief Administration; and El Falansterio, a Deco public housing complex built by the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, a New Deal agency unique to the territory.
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Tupelo Homesteads Threatened with Demolition
The National Park Service plans to remove part of the Tupelo Homesteads, a Mississippi New Deal resettlement community completed in 1936. One of the few remaining “subsistence colonies” built by the Roosevelt Administration, the 35-unit Tupelo Homesteads is currently used as National Park Service offices. The structures are on the National Register, but due to the lack of funding, the Park Service plans to remove the structures and keep only 11 homesteads. Despite a call for proposals, no solutions to save the property came forth. Resettlement communities across the United States offered a new beginning to workers displaced by the Great Depression. A few acres of land, 30 cents an hour for construction work, and credit for buying a house was the assistance given to the hundreds of households that settled in Tygart Valley Homesteads, Arthurdale, and Eleanor in West Virginia. With the onset of World War II, these communities disbanded as owners sold their homesteads and returned to industrial work. Few of the homesteads survive and, just like Tupelo Homesteads, those that remain are threatened with demolition or redevelopment.
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