 In overcoming the Great Depression, the New Deal approached national recovery not only through vast public works for which it is best known, but also through the arts, education, conservation and a social safety net. The New Deal’s ambitions extended to providing housing, schools, museums, concert halls, community centers, parks and playgrounds; restoring depleted forests and soils; supporting musicians, writers and artists; and improving literacy, nutrition, public health and safety. More than eighty years after it began, the New Deal has reemerged in a national conversation about America’s future. A Green New Deal, a Civilian Climate Corps; a New Deal for Writers; for Teachers, for Youth, for Labor, for Higher Education, for Women, for Seniors; for Civil Rights—are among the propositions being put forward. Beyond infrastructure, what might a new New Deal include?
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By Jonathan Shipley
Between 1933 and 1934, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) opened nearly 3,000 Emergency Nursery Schools (ENS), enrolling 64,000 students.The Biden Administration has proposed what could be a New Deal for Childcare, providing free or reduced-cost child care for the majority of working families with children under the age of six.
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 America Needs a Federal Scholars Project
By Shannan Clark
After forty years of austerity and disinvestment in higher education, more than 75 percent of the teaching in America’s colleges and universities is done by part-time adjunct instructors paid abysmally low salaries. Just as the New Deal provided jobs for thousands of out-of-work writers, artists and performers during the Great Depression, a new jobs program is needed now for scholars who, through the casualization of intellectual labor find themselves without jobs or precariously employed.
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 Society of Architectural Historians
San Francisco New Deal Murals Tour
September 23 and October 14, 2021
Robert Cherny, professor emeritus of history at San Francisco State, will lead the all-day bus tour.
$50 members/$80 non members
For more information please contact Ward Hill at [email protected]
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 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Pan American Unity, A mural by Diego Rivera
On exhibit through 2023
Produced for the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition at Treasure Island, Rivera’s fresco, measuring 22 by 74-feet, was recently moved from the City College of San Francisco to the San Francisco MOMA for the museum's 2022 retrospective on the famed Mexican muralist. Rivera’s assistants included artists of the WPA. Free to see.
Hours: sfmoma.org/visit/
Learn more: sfmoma.org/exhibition/pan-american-unity
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Living New Deal Webinar Series, “The Next New Deal”
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 "Why The New Deal Matters"
Thursday, September 30, 5pm PST (8PM EDT)
Eric Rauchway, author of the aclaimed new book, Why the New Deal Matters and historian Lizbeth Cohen discuss how the New Deal fundamentally changed American life and why it remains relevant today. Free. REGISTER
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 "Biden’s Civilian Climate Corps: Lessons from the Original CCC"
Thursday, October 21, 5pm PDT (8pm EDT)
Neil Mahler, author of Nature’s New Deal, describes how the CCC reshaped both the land and the political landscape during the Great Depression, and how a Civilian Climate Corps could do the same. Free. REGISTER
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 Submissions Invited for the New Deal Book Award
Deadline, November 15, 2021
The Living New Deal invites submissions of nonfiction books about the New Deal published in 2021.
Guidelines and submission form available here
For more information, contact Kurt Feichtmeir
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Some links may limit access for nonsubscribers. Please support local journalism, if you can.
The Senate Infrastructure Bill Puts America Closer to Another New Deal
One of the problems with a bill this big is that can’t be all things to all people. Instead, we need to judge it in the aggregate. Can this bill make the country more inclusive, environmentally resilient and industrially competitive?
By Adie Tomer
Brookings, August 5, 2021
The New Deal Program that Rewrote America
In the 30s, the government paid unemployed writers, artists and journalists to produce a series of guidebooks for the country. What story did they tell?
By Margaret Talbot
The New Yorker, August 5, 2021
The Civilian Climate Corps Could Be Transformative. Will Democrats Meet the Moment?
Those on the front lines of fighting systemic racism, historic pollution, the climate crisis and economic insecurity must be at the forefront of building a more just economy.
By Bella Devaan
Counterpunch, August 9, 2021
The Case for the Civilian Climate Corps
A national work service program would build a political base for further Green New Deal victories, making it a vital climate infrastructure demand.
By William Lawrence
The Trouble, August 3, 2021
Doug Leen, Ranger of the Lost Art
From the mid-1930s to the early 1940s, thousands of artists were hired to create posters for the government. Leen decided to make it his duty to find as many of the original WPA national parks posters as possible.
By Bailey Bert
Sierra, June 27, 2021
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"It is my belief that what is being accomplished will conserve our natural resources, create future national wealth and prove of moral and spiritual value not only to those of you who are taking part, but to the rest of the country as well.”
— FDR Greeting to the CCC, 1933
FDR at CCC camp in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Courtesy FDR Library
In Case You Missed It
DISPATCHES FROM THE ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART
A new monthly podcast series from the Smithsonian illuminates under-represented voices within the Archives' Oral History Program. It explores the great diversity of the American art scene, including during the New Deal.
YOUR DONATIONS KEEP THE NEW DEAL SPIRIT ALIVE.
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