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FEBRUARY 2021
THIS LAND WAS MADE FOR YOU AND ME
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 Like thousands of other Dust Bowl refugees, Woody Guthrie migrated to California. He scraped by, busking for spare change, washing dishes, sweeping floors. In 1937, he got a job at a small radio station in LA. As his popularity grew, Woody mimeographed copies of his songs to mail to fans. In his songbook, “Ten Songs for Two Bits," Woody wrote:
“In these ten songs you will hear a lot of music of a lot of races. Songs of every color. Every people loves and copies the songs and the music, the ideas, the customs, of all the other races. Songs like these soak into every wall, hall, factory, every hull of every ship, every hammer coming down on every anvil, every seed falling down into every row, every hand moving with a dust rag, a wheel, a lever, a dial, a handle, a button pushed…I have never heard a nation of people sing an editorial out of a newspaper. A man sings about the little things that help him or hurt his people and he sings of what has got to be done to fix this world like it ought to be.”
Woody would go on to write a thousand such songs, including “This Land Is Your Land,” a protest song in response to Irving Berlin’s patriotic hymn, "God Bless America,” which Woody felt glossed over the lop-sided distribution of wealth in America .“This Land is Your Land” was performed at the presidential inauguration last month—an appeal for unity. But Woody’s song reminds us that we have much work to do "to fix this world like it ought to be."
Watch: “This Land Is Your Land” montage from the film “Woody Guthrie: Hard Travelin” (3 min)
Watch: Sharon Jones and the Dapp Kings:This Land Is Your Land (4 min)
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by Jonathan Shipley
Before he became the legendary folk singer, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was an itinerant left-wing songwriter looking for work. In 1937, he was hired by the BPA. They couldn’t get him on the (permanent) payroll, so they hired him for 30 days. Guthrie earned a total of $266.66, which worked out to about ten dollars a song. READ MORE
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 "Here’s the Deal,” Joe Biden.
We Need a Big Jobs Program Now.
By June Hopkins and David Riemer
The New Deal’s history holds valuable lessons for the new Administration: “People don’t eat in the long run,” Harry Hopkins said, “they eat every day.” The most powerful antidote to poverty is immediate employment and decent wages. READ MORE
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 A Living New Deal Webinar
Health of a Nation: Past Inspirations, Recent Lessons and Equitable Planning for the Future
Monday, February 8, 2021, 8pm EST
Among its many achievements, the New Deal devoted significant resources to improving public health. To explore this forgotten history and to address the public health challenges we face today, join the webinar. FREE. Learn more and register.
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 Webinar by Annie Rothstein Segan
Photography of Arthur Rothstein in New Jersey
Saturday, Feb 20, 2021, 2pm EST
While working for the FSA, Rothstein captured iconic images of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. Lesser known are his photos documenting workers on the cranberry bogs and farms of Burlington County, NJ. These works now serve to help us learn about what life on the farm was like in the late 1930s. FREE. Click here to register.
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 Webinar
Fire, Fire Mapping and Fire Breaks
The David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford University
Friday, February 26,2021, 2:30pm PST
Authors Stephen Pyne and Gray Brechin will discuss America’s fire history and policy including the Ponderosa Way, an 800-mile-long fire break built by the Civilian Conservation for containing wildfires. Learn more and register.
Read Brechin’s article "A Fire Break Runs Through It"
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Some links may limit access for nonsubscribers. Please support local journalism, if you can.
Photos show how Biden replaced Trump’s Oval Office decorations with symbols of American icons
Gone is the portrait of populist President Andrew Jackson that Trump so admired, replaced by a grand portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the man who once guided the country out of troubled times — a task that President Biden now faces.
by Erin Snodgrass
Insider, January 21, 2021
When Biden Becomes…Rooseveltian
Using a crisis to reduce child poverty and make America more truly a land of opportunity.
“Mr. President, if your program succeeds, you’ll be the greatest president in American history,” the visitor told FDR. “If it fails, you will be the worst one.” “If it fails,” Roosevelt responded, “I’ll be the last one.”
By Nicholas Kristof
The New York Times, January 16, 2021
The Arts Are in Crises: Here’s How Biden Can Help.
A critic offers an ambitious plan.
By Jason Farago
The New York Times, January 13, 2021
The Next New Deal Must be for Black Americans, too.
Democratic leaders including President-elect Joe Biden often harken back to the New Deal. But for Black Americans, the New Deal left an ambivalent legacy.
By Willow Lung-Amam
Bloomberg, January 18, 2021
The Case for a New WPA
When the government pays for people to work, they get out of poverty, a new study finds. The social worker Harry Hopkins was convinced of one thing during the Great Depression: It did not benefit a man to sit around waiting for work. “Give a man a dole,” he famously said at the time, “and you save his body and destroy his spirit.”
By Alana Semuels
The Atlantic, April 14, 2016
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“Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
In Case You Missed It
Social movements historically have used posters to spread the word, build solidarity and demand change. During the New Deal, the WPA produced posters to promote public health, tourism, education, the arts and more. In the digital age, activists are harnessing the power of the poster to demand a Green New Deal.
Watch: Art and Activism-Posters for Social Change (1 hour)
A Living New Deal Webinar with Lincoln Cushing, Ennis Carter and Max Slavkin
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