 Artists aren’t usually the first to benefit from government jobs programs but Harry Hopkins, director of New Deal relief, insisted, “Hell, they’ve got to eat just like other people!”
The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), the first-ever federal program to support art on a national level, was up and running by the end of 1933. Within six months PWAP provided jobs for more than 3,700 struggling artists. The Treasury Department’s Section on Painting and Sculpture, begun in 1934, commissioned 1,400 art projects to embellish post offices, court houses and other federal buildings nationwide. The Federal Art Project (FAP), launched in 1935, hired 5,000 artists who produced more than 225,000 artworks during the FAP's 8-year run. Through paintings, sculpture, prints and murals the New Deal brought art into the lives of everyday people, providing a vast—now vulnerable—visual record reflecting Americans’ myths, hopes and values in difficult times.
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By Blaise Tobia and Virginia Maksymowicz
Many familiar with the New Deal believe it was the one and only time the federal government sponsored a major employment project for artists. This couldn’t be further from the truth. From 1974 to 1982, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) funded roughly 20,000 arts sector jobs nationwide. READ MORE |
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By David Lembeck
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania received 88 New Deal post office murals—second only to New York State. Portrayals of hardworking people along with significant local historical events predominate in this post office art. READ MORE
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Living New Deal Webinars - Via Zoom
 “CETA: Forgotten Federally Funded Artists”
October 3, 10, 17, 5pm PDT
The Living New Deal Assistant Director Dr. Mary Okin, who leads the Advocating for New Deal Art Initiative; photographer Blaise Tobia and sculptor Virginia Maksymowicz, founders of the CETA Arts Legacy Project, cohost this online series.
The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973, (CETA), became the largest federal jobs program since the New Deal and a major source of support for cultural workers in the US. This webinar series explores the origins of CETA funding for the arts and how it shaped a diverse generation of artists, many of whom continue to impact the visual and performing arts. FREE. Register for each of 3 webinars.
October 3, 5pm PDT: “Reshaping the WPA for the 1970s”
With John Kreidler, whose idea led to extending CETA funding for the arts in San Francisco; and George Koch, who supported CETA arts funding at the national level from Washington DC. FREE. REGISTER
October 10, 2024, 5pm PDT: “The Artist Experience”
With Colleen Hooper, historian of CETA-funded dance history; Judy Baca, professor of Chicano studies at UCLA, artist, founder of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) and director of “The Great Wall” project, a monumental mural by community artists depicting the story of Los Angeles through the lens of interracial harmony. FREE. REGISTER
October 17, 2024, 5pm PDT: “Impact on the Arts and Community”
With Ted Berger, longtime leader of nonprofits and art projects in New York City; and Lou Bellamy, founder and co-artistic director of Penumbra Theatre Company, dedicated to dramatic exploration of the African American experience. FREE. REGISTER
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Join Us In Person
 Coit Tower, San Francisco, California
90th Anniversary Mural Tour
Saturday, October 19, 2024, 6pm
Under the New Deal’s first public art program, PWAP, 25 artists were hired to decorate the blank walls of Coit Tower. Controversy arose over the politically charged images in the frescoes they painted, delaying the tower’s official opening. The building finally opened to the public in October 1934. Join us for a special guided tour celebrating the murals' 90th anniversary with Professor Robert Cherny, author of the new book The Coit Tower Murals: New Deal Art and Political Controversy in San Francisco; Jon Golinger, founder of Protect Coit Tower and Living New Deal Advisor and New Deal art historian Harvey Smith.
FREE. Space is limited. RSVP: [email protected]
 USC Libraries, Los Angeles, California
The 19th Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar
Saturday, October 19, 2024, 10:00am - 3:00pm PDT
LA as Subject: The annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar gives anyone with an interest in the region a one-stop opportunity to interact with dozens of archives, from large institutions to private collectors. This year, programming will explore the history of water in Southern California, from snow-covered mountain slopes to our vital aqueducts, from the traces of natural waterways in suburbia to the larger rivers that feed into the Pacific Ocean. Flood control was one of the New Deal’s most significant undertakings in the region. FREE. INFO
LOCATION:Doheny Memorial Library, 3550 Trousdale Pkwy, USC University Park Campus, Los Angeles, CA
 Live Stream: Black CCC Enrollees in Southern Oregon
Oregon Black Pioneers
Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 7:00pm-8:00 pm PST
Aspects of the Civilian Conservation Corps were certainly discriminatory, yet African American corpsmen played a significant role in conservation efforts and the development of our nation’s public lands. Retired US Forest Service historian Jeff LaLande will discuss Black participation in Oregon's CCC camps on OBP’s YouTube channel.
 National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Gordon Parks: Camera Portraits from the Corcoran Collection
Through January 12, 2025
In 1937, while working as a waiter on the North Coast Limited passenger train, Parks saw magazines featuring Depression-era photographs—images like Dorothea Lange’s that recorded the social and economic conditions of migrant farmers across the country. These images reminded him of his own struggles and inspired him to purchase his first camera. This exhibition presents some of Parks’s best known portraits and documentary images that speak to the larger story of the civil rights movement, the African American experience and American culture.
LOCATION: Constitution Ave + 6th St, West Building, Ground Floor, Gallery G22, Washington DC
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By Susan Ives
Representatives of fifty countries gathered in San Francisco on April 25, 1945 to draw up the Charter for the new international organization Roosevelt envisioned—the United Nations. READ MORE
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By Harvey Smith
Added to the tower in 1934, the twenty-seven murals were the first commission in the country under the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), the precursor to the federal art programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), providing paying jobs to artists during the Depression. 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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Some links may limit access for nonsubscribers. Please support local journalism, if you can.
A wooden replica of San Francisco the size of an apartment could find a permanent home in the city
The scale model was conceived and designed by famed architect Timothy Pflueger, was built by 300 artisans employed under the WPA. “I’ve been working on this for 15 years,” said Gray Brechin, founder of the Living New Deal, a Berkeley nonprofit.”
By Sam Whiting
San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 2025
The second-in-command position used to be "insignificant" but can't be ignored today. Here's how (and why) that's changed.
Warren Harding was the first president to invite his vice, Calvin Coolidge, to attend Cabinet meetings; Franklin Delano Roosevelt continued the practice with all three of his vice presidents. Nonetheless, Roosevelt’s last VP, Harry Truman, felt completely unprepared to assume the presidency when FDR died. Truman had been kept so ignorant of critical policy issues that he was only informed about the Manhattan Project upon taking the chief executive office.
By Kirstin Butler
PBS, September 13, 2024
A nationwide 30-hour workweek? It almost happened.
During the Great Depression, the Senate passed — and President Franklin D. Roosevelt supported — a bill to establish a standard 30-hour workweek. Then it got derailed.
By Gillian Brockell
Washington Post, September 2, 2024
The New Deal and the challenge of Project 2025
It appears that “Project 2025,” created by the Heritage Foundation as a playbook for a new Trump Administration, seeks to dismantle the New Deal’s legacy.
By Robert E. Weems Jr.
KMUW.org, September 11, 2024
Biden-Harris Administration Announces Largest Investment in Rural Electrification Since the New Deal
Financing for rural electric cooperatives will build clean energy for rural communities across the country through the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program. The funding will create good-paying jobs, lower energy costs for rural communities, reduce pollution and enhance the resiliency of the nation’s electric grid.
USDA, September 5, 2024
Awakening the Spirit of America: FDR’s War of Words with Charles Lindbergh and the Battle to Save Democracy
Paul Sparrow, former director of the FDR Library, brings President Roosevelt, his allies and his adversaries to life as Roosevelt fought to transform America from an isolationist bystander into the world’s first superpower.
By Brian Vakulskas
KSJC.com, September 9, 2024
How the New Deal helped seed the modern environmental movement
Today, when Americans talk about “big government,” the connotation is almost always negative. But the CCC infused money into the economy at a time when it was urgently needed, and its work had lasting value.
By Benjamin Alexander
Seattle PI, September 14, 2024
The Leadership Journey: How Four Kids Became President
Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's new children’s book profiles four presidents who grew up and lived in very different worlds—Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt; Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. So how did each of them rise to become President of the United States?
CBS.com, August 29,2014
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The Living New Deal is always posting new content to our growing website.
Words Matter:
New Dealers and Race
 The New Deal revolutionized many aspects of US society and politics, but not its racial order. "Words Matter," recently added to the Living New Deal website, highlights the racism prevalent at the time through statements of congressmen, newspaper editors and others.
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"We believe that the rallying cry of the dictators, their boasting about a master-race, will prove to be pure stuff and nonsense. There never has been, there isn't now, and there never will be, any race of people on the earth fit to serve as masters over their fellow men."
— Address at the Annual Dinner of White House Correspondents’ Association
March 15, 1941
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