 On June 16, 1933, Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA), one of 76 laws enacted during FDR’s first hundred days as president. Intended to jumpstart the nation’s economic recovery, the NRA advanced fair competition, the rights of workers and jobs for the millions of unemployed. It established the Public Works Administration to get Americans back to work. During its four-year existence, the PWA invested $4 billion to construct more than 70 percent of the nation’s schools; 65 percent of its new courthouses, city halls, and sewage-disposal plants; 35 percent of its new public health facilities; and 10 percent of all new roads, bridges and subways. Hugh Johnson, who headed the NRA, enjoined every business to adopt the NRA “code” that included a minimum wage of between 20 and 45 cents per hour, a maximum workweek of 35 to 45 hours and the abolition of child labor. Businesses that went along were permitted to display the NRA’s symbol, the Blue Eagle, declaring “We do our part.” In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the NRA infringed on the separation of powers and was unconstitutional. But the vast infrastructure created by PWA workers still serves eighty years on.
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By Gray Brechin
If it passes Congress, Biden’s infrastructure proposal would create a myriad of needed jobs. It’s a reminder of the stupendous feat that ”Honest Harold” Ickes achieved modernizing the country in just half a decade as head of the Public Works Administration, 1935-1939. Those accomplishments are compiled in a doorstopper I call the "Blue Bible." The richly illustrated book is proof of what could be accomplished in the future. READ MORE
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 New Deal Artworks Showcased in Upstate NY
By Deborah Bump
The New Deal Art programs were a lifeline to struggling artists. Of the more than 10,000 artists commissioned nationwide by the WPA's Federal Art Project some 2,300 artists were in New York City.
READ MORE
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JOIN US FOR JUNE WEBINARS
 How the New Deal Transformed Greater Washington
Sunday, June 6, 1-2:30pm PDT, 4-5:30pm EDT
Hosts: Greenbelt Museum and Art Deco Society
Featuring Richard Walker, director the Living New Deal & Historians Brent McKee & Isabelle Gournay. RSVP
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Mapping Narratives: The New Deal, Segregation and Black Power in D.C.
Wednesday, June 9, 3:30 EDT
Host: Center for Washington Area Studies, George Washington University
Featuring Mara Chernasky, Prologue DC; Derek Musgrove, professor of History UMBC; Richard Walker, director of the Living New Deal & Moderator Kyla Summers. RSVP
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Parks, Pools and the New Deal in Greater New York: Legacies and Prospects
Wednesday, June 9, 7:00 pm EDT
Host: The Living New Deal, NYC
Featuring Marta Gutman, historian, author and architect; Rose Harvey, former NYC Parks Commissioner & Historian Robert Snyder. RSVP
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 "Why the New Deal Matters”
Thursday, June 10, 6pm EDT
Host: Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College
Featuring the author Eric Rauchway in conversation with Harold Holzer, director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. RSVP
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 “Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America”
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. EDT
Hosts: National Archives Museum and The Living New Deal
Authors Scott Borchert & Susan DeMasi discuss the New Deal Federal Writers Project. REGISTER
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How the New Deal Remade Washington, D.C.
Thursday, June 17, 2pm EDT
Host: Northwest Neighbors Village
Featuring Richard Walker, director of the Living New Deal. RSVP
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Juneteenth: Honoring Black artists & designers from the Harlem Renaissance to the WPA, to today!
Friday, June 18, 3-430pm EDT
Host: Posters for the People
With Ennis Carter, Posters for the People; Tammi Lawson,Schomburg Center for Research in Black Studies and award-winning graphic designer Monna Morton. RSVP
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 New Deal Art & Architecture in Washington, D.C.
Sunday, June 22, 5pm EDT
Hosts: Falls Church Art Center and The Living New Deal
Featuring: Sarah Gordon, curator at the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities & Richard Walker, director of the Living New Deal. RSVP
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Some links may limit access for nonsubscribers. Please support local journalism, if you can.
Wrestling With the New Deal
American intellectuals obsess over FDR because, as historian Eric Rauchway demonstrates in his new book "Why the New Deal Matters," FDR saved the American project itself—for better and for worse.
By Zachary D. Carter
The American Prospect, May 28, 2021
Biden Wants A Civilian Climate Corps. Here's How It Might Work
President Biden wants to retool and relaunch one of the country's most celebrated government programs: the CCC. (7 minutes)
By Nathan Rott & Scott Detrow
NPR, May 11, 2021
The Civilian Climate Corps Is a Big-Government Plan That All Americans Can Embrace
A modern-day CCC could be an attention-getting reminder of something that a great many Americans seem to have forgotten: the capacity of government to be an instrument of the common good.
By Jim Lardner
The New Yorker, March 7, 2021
What Would a 21st-Century Federal Writers Project Look Like?
A new Federal Writers Project could work to make our digital legacy comprehensible for future readers.
By Jason Boog
Full Stop, February 1, 2021
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"Throughout the nation, men and women forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government of the last years, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth."
— FDR, July 2, 1932
In Case You Missed It
On May 6—the WPA's 86th birthday—Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) and Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) introduced The 21st -Century Federal Writers' Project Act. If passed, the legislation would create a grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor to hire America’s unemployed and underemployed journalists and writers.
Watch the Living New Deal webinar: "Reigniting the Spirit of the FWP,”
featuring authors Susan DeMasi, David Kipen and Fern Nesson.
YOUR DONATIONS KEEP THE NEW DEAL SPIRIT ALIVE.
The Living New Deal thanks you for your generous support!
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