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In 1937, in a letter to the nation’s governors, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote: “Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”
Forests played a major part in the New Deal. FDR’s “Tree Army,” the Civilian Conservation Corps, enlisted millions of young men to fight wildfires, replant forests and restore spent land. The lesser known Resettlement Administration (RA), enacted in 1935, (later renamed the Farm Securities Administration) aspired to house the thousands displaced by the Dust Bowl and made jobless by the Great Depression. The RA’s town planners envisioned affordable, well-built homes surrounded by "green belts" of fields and forests. Congress considered the plan socialist and cut off funding. Only three “greenbelt towns" were built. With the climate and housing prices wildly overheated, the New Deal vision might offer the "fresh strength" we need today.
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By Owen A. Kelley
Town planners at the Resettlement Administration conceived cooperative communities united by neighbors and nature. Residents of Greenbelt, Maryland, have fought for decades to preserve the remaining forests for which their New Deal town is named. READ MORE |
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 Greenbelt Community Center, Greenbelt, MD
"The Knowing Hands That Carve This Stone”
The New Deal Art of Lenore Thomas Straus
Lenore Thomas Straus, a self-taught artist, was commissioned by the Resettlement Agency to create large-scale sculptures and bas reliefs at New Deal communities the federal government built during the Great Depression. The exhibit includes photographs, artifacts, books and artworks. MORE INFORMATION
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 Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA
"Emmy Lou Packard, Artist of Conscience”
Through August 20, 2022
Artist of Conscience explores the life and work of Emmy Lou Packard (1914-1998), a remarkable artist known for her paintings, prints and murals, as well as her activism. Packard was mentored by Diego Rivera and became his principal assistant on the Pan American Unity mural he painted on Treasure Island for the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1940 (currently on view at SFMOMA). Packard restored the renowned New Deal frescoes at San Francisco’s Coit Tower, and participated in landmarking the Rincon Annex Post Office, site of the “History of San Francisco” mural series by New Deal artist Anton Refrigier. MORE INFORMATION
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 A Living New Deal Webinar
The Federal Theatre: Revisiting the Dream
Tuesday, October 11, 2022, 5pm-6pm Pacific (8pm Eastern)
From 1934 to 1938, the Federal Theater Project put starving unemployed actors, directors, set designers, stagehands and writers back to work. Susan Quinn and Dan Jacobs retell the story in a play called Enter Hallie, which intertwines Federal Theater Director Hallie Flanagan’s private struggles with her public quest to create innovative theater for hundreds of thousands. Susan and Dan will mix readings from the play with a discussion of Federal Theater history, as told in Sue Quinn’s book, Furious Improvisation. Free. REGISTER
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 Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, NY
"FDR’s Final Campaign"
Through December 30, 2023
FDR’s Final Campaign tells the story of the momentous final year of President Roosevelt’s life and presidency. It explores FDR’s vision for the future of his nation and the world—and the campaign he undertook during his last months to secure it. MORE INFORMATION
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Some links may limit access for nonsubscribers. Please support local journalism, if you can.
Biden in Peril as No Democrat President Has Survived a Recession Since FDR
Despite having overseen America's second-worst 20th-century recession after the Great Depression, Roosevelt secured re-election in 1940. No other Democrat president has replicated this feat since.
By James Bickerton
Newsweek, August 2, 2022
What Happened to Social Security Under Each President
The hallmark program of the New Deal remains the bedrock of the nation’s social safety net, but it looks a whole lot different than when it was first enacted in 1935.
By Andrew Lisa
Yahoo.com, August 1, 2022
Media Extremism Is Nothing New
In her new book, The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler, historian Kathryn S. Olmsted finds not only were some foremost newspaper publishers needling FDR from their editorial pages, they also imposed their views on their reporters. “Fake news” was as evident in those days as it is today.
By Kathryn Smith
George Washington University History News Network, July 31, 2022
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"Invest in the human soul.
Who knows, it may be a diamond in the rough.”
This famous quote by the educator and civil rights activist Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) is inscribed on the pedestal of her statue, recently installed in Statuary Hall at the US Capitol. Her statue replaces that of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith. The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Bethune, founder of the Council of Negro Women, advised multiple US presidents. She was the only woman to serve in FDR’s “Black Cabinet,” and he appointed her to head the New Deal’s National Youth Administration (NYA). The 11-foot marble statue, by the Hispanic sculptor Nilda Comas, depicts Bethune holding a walking stick, a symbol of wise leadership. The walking stick is modeled on the one Bethune received as a gift from President Roosevelt.
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Tell Us About Your Favorite New Deal Site
Send us a first-person story of 100 (or so) words describing the site and why you chose it. Submissions will appear in future issues of The Fireside! Be sure to include a photo (with photo credit). Send to [email protected]. Thanks!
Red Rocks Still Rocks!
Named for 300-foot slabs of bright red sandstone, Red Rocks Park has served as a venue for live music for much of Denver's history. The first documented concert, in 1906, featured a 25-piece brass band. The first rock concert took place in 1964, featuring The Beatles! Virtually every big-name band has performed on its “acoustically perfect” stage since. The city of Denver purchased Rock Rocks—elevation 6,500 feet—in 1927. The Civilian Conservation Corps arrived in 1936 to carve out the 9,450-seat amphitheater. A bronze statue of a CCC worker stands in tribute to their achievement. Some 80 years on, Red Rocks Amphitheater remains a mecca for music lovers. It also hosts classic films under the stars. A wildly popular event, “Yoga on the Rocks,” would have been unimaginable to Red Rocks’ founders and builders whose stories are told at the Visitor Center. On the day I visited, hundreds of students in caps and gowns poured in to the historic amphitheater for their high school graduation.
— Susan Ives
YOUR DONATIONS KEEP THE NEW DEAL SPIRIT ALIVE.
The Living New Deal thanks you for your generous support!
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“The essential democracy of our nation and the safety of our people depend not upon the absence of power, but upon lodging it with those whom the people can change or continue at stated intervals through an honest and free system of elections.”
— FDR, Second Inaugural Address, January, 1937
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