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MAY 2024


** Writing America’s Story ([link removed])
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Creating thousands of jobs for unemployed creatives, the Federal Writers’ Project (1935-1943) proved a launchpad for some of America's most celebrated storytellers. FWP workers produced research, writings and recordings that illuminate the historical, cultural and political circumstances of the New Deal-era. The FWP archive, housed at the Library of Congress ([link removed]) , continues to inspire and inform ninety years on. In that spirit, the Living New Deal seeks to encourage authorship about the New Deal through our annual New Deal Book Award ([link removed]) . The award recognizes writers whose work provides a deeper understanding and appreciation of those extraordinary times.


** Clippers and Quilts: Living New Deal Book Award Winners for 2023 ([link removed])
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The Living New Deal considered 17 books for its 2023 annual New Deal Book Award ([link removed]) , established to recognize outstanding nonfiction works about U.S. history in the New Deal era (1933-1942). This year's award is shared by Brooke L. Blower, Americans in a World at War: Intimate Histories from the Crash of Pan Am’s Yankee Clipper, and Janneken Smucker, A New Deal for Quilts. The authors will be honored at the FDR Presidential Library and Museum on Saturday, June 22. READ MORE ([link removed])


** Revisiting the Federal Writers’ Project—the Nation’s First Self-Portrait ([link removed])
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** By David A. Taylor

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The People’s Recorder ([link removed]) , a podcast launched in 2024, explores the people and legacy of the New Deal’s Federal Writers’ Project using interviews and vintage recordings of the voices of those who were there. READ MORE ([link removed])
HAPPENINGS
Living New Deal Webinar
"Whose Stories? Exploring the legacy of the Federal Writers’ Project” ([link removed])
with David Taylor and Michelle Danforth Anderson
Tuesday, June 11, 2024, 5-6pm PDT

The People's Recorder ([link removed]) , a national podcast launched in 2024, recounts stories of American life in the 1930s using interviews and recordings made by workers of the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project. This webinar intertwines voices from the past with contemporary stories while exploring the FWP’s legacy—what it achieved, where it fell short, whose stories got told and what it means to America today.

David Taylor is writer and a producer of The People's Recorder from Spark Media. He wrote and co-produced the 2009 award-winning documentary "Soul of a People, Writing America’s Story,” ([link removed]) directed by Andrea Kalin, about the origins of the FWP.
Michelle Danforth Anderson is Marketing and Tourism Director for the Oneida Nation and producer of the documentary, "Missing Threads, The Story of the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act." ([link removed])
Moderator Susan Demasi ([link removed] ) is author of the 2017 biography, Henry Alsberg: The Driving Force of the New Deal Federal Writers’ Project ([link removed]) . She is National Research Associate for the Living New Deal. FREE. REGISTER ([link removed])

In-Person Event
"A Chance to Harmonize” ([link removed])
A conversation with Sheryl Kaskowitz, Alexis Harte and Harvey Smith
Thursday, June 6, 6:30-8pm PDT

Music scholar Sheryl Kaskowitz ([link removed]) is author of A Chance to Harmonize: How FDR's Hidden Music Unit Sought to Save America from the Great Depression—One Song at a Time ([link removed]) , about the little-known federal Music Unit that collected and archived American folk music during the Great Depression. Musician and producer Alexis Harte ([link removed]) has penned Oscar-nominated and Emmy award-winning music and has won Peabody and Annie Awards. He is currently working on a film about the Berkeley Rose Garden and its New Deal roots based on his original song, “Your Rose Garden,” ([link removed]) celebrating the New Deal in our backyard. Living New Deal Project Advisor Harvey Smith is author Berkeley and the New Deal.
FREE. RSVP ([link removed])

LOCATION: Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda, Berkeley, CA

The Municipal Art Society of New York
May 3,4,5 2024
Jane's Walk, "Red Hook Public Housing: Picturing the Past and Renovating for the Future” ([link removed])
with Brodie Hefner and Ann Rothstein Segan

Jane’s Walk, named for urban preservationist Jane Jacobs, is an annual festival offering a variety of free, community-led walks led by expert guides in 500 cities worldwide. This tour, on Saturday, May 4, explores the origins of the largest public housing development in Brooklyn and its revitalization in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. RSVP/MORE INFO ([link removed])
To learn more about Jane's Walk NYC or to join the movement, contact [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.mas.org/janes-walk-nyc. ([link removed])

The Huntington
The Sargent Claude Johnson Exhibition "From the Harlem Renaissance through the Civil Rights Movement" ([link removed])
Through May 20, 2024

This exhibition of 43 works is dedicated to the work of Sargent Claude Johnson, the California artist whose uplifting portrayals of people of color made him the West Coast’s key connection to the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson served as unit supervisor of the WPA sculpture division. His powerful masks, portrait busts, lithographs and sculptures have become emblems of the Harlem Renaissance. MORE INFO ([link removed])

LOCATION: MaryLou and George Boone Gallery. The Huntington, huntington.org. 151 Oxford Rd, San Marino, CA

Stanford University
The New Deal & the Federal Writers’ Project, 1935-1943 ([link removed])
Selections from the Bruce & Rachel Jeffer Collection
Thursday, May 30, 4:30-6:30pm PDT

Inspired by childhood automobile trips across the country with his father, and a lifelong love of American history and literature, Los Angeles attorney Bruce Jeffer assembled nearly two thousand titles of the Federal Writers’ Project and related WPA and New Deal publications. In addition to the American Guide series, the collection includes oral histories, ethnographies, folklore collections, craft traditions and books for children. Remarks by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). FREE. RSVP ([link removed])

LOCATION: Peterson Gallery & Munger Rotunda, Bing Wing, 2nd Floor, Cecil H. Green Library, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA (map ([link removed]) )

Roosevelt University, Gage Gallery
"New Deal America: Photographs by Arthur Rothstein" ([link removed])
Through May 31, 2024

The exhibit features images from the acclaimed photographer’s travels through the rural communities affected most by the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. The works exhibited include some of the most well-known photographs of the time and spotlight individuals who benefited from President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. MORE INFO ([link removed])
LOCATION: Gage Gallery, 425 S. Wabash Ave. Chicago, IL

The Met Fifth Avenue
"The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism" ([link removed])
Through July 28, 2024

The exhibit delves into the far-reaching impact of Black artists portraying everyday life in the new Black cities that sprang up through the 1920s and 40s. Featured are over 150 artworks, including by prominent artists of WPA. MORE INFO ([link removed])

LOCATION: The Met, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery for Special Exhibitions, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY


The National Steinbeck Center
"Dust, Displacement, and Dignity Restored: ([link removed])
Arthur Rothstein’s Photographic Testament to the Grapes of Wrath” ([link removed])
Through August 11, 2024

The human tragedy of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s has been imprinted on America’s collective memory due, in part, to images produced by New Deal photographers. Rigorous scholarship has revealed insights into the author John Steinbeck’s relationship to the Farm Security Administration, providing the foundational research for this exhibition. MORE INFO ([link removed])
LOCATION: National Steinbeck Center, 1 Main Street, Salinas, CA

NEW DEALISH
Saint Frances of the New Deal ([link removed])
The first woman to serve as a US Cabinet and the longest serving Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins summed up her work saying, “I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain common workingmen.” In 2009 the Episcopal Church designated May 13 as an annual feast day in Frances Perkins’s honor. READ MORE ([link removed])
FAVORITE NEW DEAL SITE
The Old Santa Fe Trail Building ([link removed])
Santa Fe, New Mexico
By Susan Ives
A stone’s throw from the wagon-rutted historic trail, the Old Santa Fe Trail Building is considered a masterpiece of Spanish Pueblo Revival architecture. The landmark building, courtyards, fountain, patio and stone walkways were all built by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1937 and 1939, largely by hand using local materials. READ MORE ([link removed])
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] (mailto:[email protected]) . Thanks!
THE NEW DEAL IN THE NEWS
Some links may limit access for nonsubscribers. Please support local journalism, if you can.

A lesson from FDR: Vulnerability is a risk. But it’s also a grace. ([link removed])
In his last speech ([link removed]) to the assembled Congress, FDR did something he had never done before. He allowed himself to be rolled in in his wheelchair. He had never appeared in public as a crippled man. The United States could admit that it had a crippled president, and at long last so could he.
By Terrance Klein
America Magazine, April 17, 2024

Here’s What a 21st-Century Rural New Deal Would Look Like ([link removed])
By championing bold solutions to the challenges faced by rural and urban workers alike, Democrats could inaugurate a progressive renaissance in places that have been misconstrued as irretrievably lost—and bolster enthusiasm among core voters.
By Katrina Vanden Heuvel
The Nation, April 23, 2024

Biden Is the Most Pro Labor President since FDR. Will It Matter in November? ([link removed])
Inserting prevailing wage standards and other worker-friendly rules into domestic-spending programs is one of the reasons that many scholars and union officials have come to view Joe Biden as the most pro-labor President since Franklin Roosevelt, a designation he has proudly embraced. And yet awareness of these policies hasn’t always filtered down ([link removed]) to the rank and file.
By Eyal Press
The New Yorker, April 18, 2024

Biden and Democrats in Congress Tout Environmental Record on Earth Day ([link removed])
President Biden ([link removed]) recognized Earth Day by touting his administration’s environmental efforts, including a Civilian Climate Corps and a $7 billion “Solar for All” program. Visit the new American Climate Corps website ([link removed]) .
By Zack Budryk
The Hill, April 22, 2024
FDR SAYS
"We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization."

— FDR, January 9, 1940

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