On June 19, 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt signed legislation establishing a “National Archives of the United States Government.” It was the culmination of decades of congressional debate on the issue of national records preservation.The new agency began by acquiring federal records from the U.S. Senate, White House, Department of State, Federal Works Agency and other federal entities. Gathering records from around the country posed a greater challenge. No one at the time knew the full extent of federal records in offices and storehouses beyond Washington, D.C. The WPA took up the challenge. In 1936, WPA workers surveyed and inventoried two-million linear feet of records in 5,000 government buildings. Today, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) holds billions of pages of textual records, tens of millions of photographs, millions of maps, charts, drawings and much more, all available to the public. NARA is an invaluable resource to the Living New Deal as we research and document the vast legacy the New Deal left to America.
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By Barbara Bernstein
A revamped Fine Arts Collection website recently unveiled by the US General Services Administration (GSA) is a bonanza for anyone interested in public art and especially those who love the art of the New Deal. While still a work in progress, the site’s detailed data, cross links and color photographs make it a pleasure to browse and search.
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By Gray Brechin
Open air theaters continue to provide live entertainment to millions of Americans unaware of the theaters’ shared New Deal parentage. In their frequent emulation of Greek models, the designers of these outdoor public spaces may well have sought to bolster democracy by bringing Americans together. READ MORE
 "Imperial San Francisco" Now an Audio Book
Dr. Gray Brechin’s provocative 1999 bestseller, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, (U of California Press) is now available as an audio book narrated by the author. A cautionary tale, Imperial San Francisco delves into the often dark history of the city's development and the environmental and social costs of urban growth.
VISIT THE WEBSITE TO LEARN MORE |
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 HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN—LET’S CELEBRATE!
Join the Living New Deal, San Francisco Maritime National Park Association, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and National Park Service to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the New Deal at one of its Crown Jewels--the San Francisco Maritime Museum.
Prof. Richardson is an American historian, author and educator. Between 2017 and 2018, she co-hosted the NPR podcast Freak Out and Carry On. She writes a nightly newsletter, Letters from an American, that chronicles current events in the larger context of American history. Her latest book, Democracy Awakening, Notes on the State of America, will be released on September 26, 2023.
11am-3pm, PST, PUBLIC TOURS of the art and architecture of this National Historic Landmark, the legacy of WPA and Federal Art Project workers. FREE. (Reservations required)
4pm-8pm, PST, VIP TOUR AND RECEPTION featuring keynote speaker, historian Heather Cox Richardson and The Honorable Charles Breyer, San Francisco writer Gary Kamiya, Living New Deal founder Gray Brechin. LIVE MUSIC, REFRESHMENTS AND MORE.
INFORMATION AND TICKETS
LOCATION: San Francisco Maritime Museum, 900 Beach Street, San Francisco
The Civilian Conservation Corps at Muir Woods
Sunday, October 22, 2023, 4pm-6pm PST, Mill Valley, California
Join this evening walk at Muir Woods National Monument to commemorate of the 90th anniversary of the New Deal and the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of earliest and most popular New Deal “relief programs.” Learn about the CCC’s imprint on Marin County’s parks, including at Muir Woods, and efforts underway to rehabilitate Redwood Creek for spawning salmon. Registration required. (Attendance is limited)
LOCATION: Entrance, Muir Woods National Monument, 1 Muir Woods Rd, Mill Valley, CA 94941
 National New Deal Preservation Association
“Coming of Age in the Great Depression: The CCC in New Mexico, 1933-1942"
With Dr. Richard Melzer, Ph.D.
September 10, 2023, 3:30pm MDT, Albuquerque, New Mexico
The Civilian Conservation Corps was one of many New Deal programs meant to stimulate local economies and provide jobs. The CCC worked on projects throughout New Mexico, including in state and national parks. By the time program ended at the start of World War II, 32,000 men had worked for the CCC. Dr. Meltzer taught history at the University of New Mexico-Valencia campus for more than 35 years. He serves on the Boards of the Valencia County Historical Society and the National New Deal Preservation Association. FREE.
LOCATION: International District Library, 7601 Central Ave NE, Albuquerque, NM
 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s
September 7-December 10, 2023, Manhattan, NY
The Great Depression was a period marked by divisive politics, threats to democracy and intensified social activism. The exhibition, featuring more than a hundred works from The Met collection and several lenders, explores how artists expressed political messages and ideologies through a range of media, from paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs to film, dance, decorative arts, fashion, and ephemera. LEARN MORE
LOCATION: The Met Fifth Avenue, Galleries 691-693
 Roosevelt University, Center for New Deal Studies
"NEW DEAL AMERICA: Photography of Arthur Rothstein”
October 16, 2023-May 2024, Chicago, Illinois
Photography’s importance in documenting social conditions reached new heights during the Great Depression. The New Deal’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) photo unit set a standard for future documentary photography projects. FSA photographers made visible the nation’s problems and what the government was doing about them. This exhibition provides a glimpse into FSA photographer Arthur Rothstein’s enduring contributions to this unprecedented documentary project.
LOCATION: Gage Gallery, Roosevelt University, 425 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, IL
 “The New Deal Spirit Award—Utopia Film Festival"
October 20-22, 2022, Old Greenbelt, Maryland
The New Deal town of Greenbelt, Maryland will recognize the 90th anniversary of FDR’s New Deal at the 19th Utopia Film Festival at the city’s historic Old Greenbelt Theatre. This year’s festival will include presentation of the “New Deal Spirit Award,” for independent films that reflect New Deal ideals. INFO
LOCATION: Old Greenbelt Theatre, 129 Centerway, Greenbelt, MD 20770
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As development marched toward the Berkeley hills in the 1920s, the ravine carved by Cordonices Creek was considered too steep for houses. With panoramic westward views of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate, the 3.6-acre canyon captured the imagination of park advocates and more recently, a local songwriter. READ MORE
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 A Riverside Greenway, Charleston, West Virginia
By Betty Rivard
Kanawha Boulevard was a narrow, traffic-clogged street in the late 1930s when the city and the Public Works Administration (PWA) funded a 14-mile throughway to improve traffic flow. After the Army Corps of Engineers stabilized the river bank in 2014, a pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists along the river was enhanced. Blocks of stone from the original PWA project were repurposed as benches along the portion of the greenway where I walk. READ MORE
Tell us about your favorite New Deal Site. Send us a first-person story of 100 (or so) words about your favorite New Deal site and why you chose it. Send your submissions to [email protected]. Thanks!
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At the Roosevelt Library, an Unflinching Look at Race
A new exhibition at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library explores the president’s “mixed” record on civil rights — and the charged debate over racism in the New Deal.
By Jennifer Schuessler
The New York Times, August 1, 2023
FDR, Social Security, and the Real Meaning of Liberty
Social Security, whose 88th ‘birthday’ took place this week, offers insight into a broader definition of liberty. Even the name – “Social Security” – contains the seeds of a broader and more profound liberty for both individuals and communities. Security for the one and security for the many form a seamless whole; one can’t exist without the other.
By Richard Eskow
LA Progressive, August 18, 2023
Will Biden Have Enough Chips in 2024?
Joe Biden in many ways is the most progressive Democratic president since FDR. He has resurrected national economic planning as a necessary government function and scrapped the neoliberal myth that government should not try to pick winners. But there are two huge differences between Biden and Roosevelt, and neither is Biden’s fault.
By Robert Kuttner
The American Prospect, August 14, 2023
Where is the left’s New Deal?
Instead of accepting the right-wing economic orthodoxy, we should implement the radical reforms that rebuilt postwar UK and US.
By Adrian Pabst
The New Statesman, August 16, 2023
1930s WPA art alive, well in Clayton museum
The church, now a museum, houses the state’s largest collection of Works Progress Administration arts and crafts. The art — as well as other WPA projects in town — kept Clayton from collapsing in the wake of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.
By Robert Nott
Santa Fe New Mexican, August 19, 2023
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“To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future.”
— FDR, June 30, 1941, at the dedication of his Presidential Library on his estate in Hyde Park, NY.
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