The nation was spiraling into the worst economic crisis in its history when presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt pledged "a new deal for the American people.” Upon taking office in 1933, FDR launched an all-out mobilization to beat back the Great Depression. “Neither before nor since have Americans so rallied around an essentially peaceable form of patriotism,” writes historian Eric Rauchway. "The New Deal matters because we all live in it…it gives structure to our lives in ways we do not ordinarily bother to count or catalog.” In 2023, the 90th birthday of the New Deal, the Living New Deal is counting, cataloging—and celebrating—the New Deal’s vast legacy.
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By Susan Gervasi
A New Deal town’s precedent-setting lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court continues to protect the freedom of the press.
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 Get Your 2023 New Deal Calendar Calendar
A full-color reproduction of the WPA’s Federal Arts Project calendar originally produced by the NYC Poster Division in 1939, the 2023 calendar features illustrations by eight New Deal artists. Sales benefit the National New Deal Preservation Association $19.33, plus tax and shipping.
Order here.
National New Deal Preservation Association
As Secretary of Labor and the first female presidential cabinet member in history, Frances Perkins was responsible for most of the domestic New Deal initiatives: Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, the 40-hour work week, a minimum wage and abolition of child labor. Dr. Breiseth knew Perkins during the last five years of her life. View the live webinar. |
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Presidents Day Weekend Events
A swing dance in honor of the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939-1940). TICKETS
 Saturday, February 18, 2023
Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home, Hyde Park, NY
A reading and book signing with Alex Prud'homme, author of Dinner with the President: Food Politics and a History of Breaking Break at the White House. Free to the public. Registration is required. Visitors also can view a selection of presidential autographs from the Roosevelt Library archives, many of which are from FDR's personal collection and on display only once a year. From 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the Research Room. Registration is not required for document show. REGISTER
 "Ending Economic Inequality-New Pathways to Shared Prosperity"
Thursday, February 23, 2023, 4pm EST
Francis Perkins Center and Maine Center for Economic Policy
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Department of Labor Chief Economist Joelle Gamble discuss dynamic proposals to shape a more equal, stronger, healthier economy. REGISTER
 "Healing Walls: Health and Art in New Deal New York”
Through February 24, 2023
An Exhibit at Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, New York City
Inspired by the Community Mural Project of the NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arts in Medicine Program, the exhibit focuses on the Federal Art Project’s public murals for hospitals and health facilities in New York City. Featured are two recently restored panels from Abram Champanier’s 1938-1940 mural, "Alice in Wonderland in New York," not seen by the public in forty years. Monday–Friday, 10am–5pm and during all Roosevelt House public and college events. |
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 Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe
Through May 14, 2023
Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon
Oscar Howe (1915–1983), a muralist for South Dakota Art Project during the New Deal, was a student of both Dakota artistic traditions and modernism. This exhibit, "Dakota Modern," traces more than forty years of the Yanktonai Dakota painter’s career and development from his early conventional work for the WPA through the emergence of his abstract approach to painting. MORE INFO
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 FDR's Birthday Ball
As president, FDR used his birthday, January 30, to advance his most important cause—raising awareness and money to eliminate polio, a disease FDR knew first hand. The first Birthday Ball was held in 1934; 4,376 communities joined together in 600 separate celebrations to raise more one million dollars for the Warm Springs Foundation, a charity FDR founded. The Birthday Ball became an annual event...
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Tell Us About Your Favorite New Deal Site
 Westmoreland Park, Portland, Oregon
By Kurt Feichtmeir
Westmoreland Park is four blocks from my home in Portland, Oregon. I enjoy it often and recently discovered it was created from swampy farmland by hundreds of WPA laborers between 1936 and 1939. READ MORE
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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History is present: FDR’s floating White House bobs in the waters off Jack London Square
The USS Potomac had a a big role in the New Deal. It was not just a yacht. A lot of serious presidential work was done on board the Potomac. The president could leave the White House and have policy discussions on board without interruption.
By Carl Nolte
San Francisco Chronicle, January 21, 2023
The Less Talked About Part of Kevin McCarthy’s Deal With Republican Radicals
Conservative opposition to social insurance goes back to the New Deal itself. Social insurance and the welfare state are more than a ballast against the winds of capitalism; they are part of the foundation of self-government and the cornerstone of democratic citizenship
By Jamelle Bouie
The New York Times, January 10, 2023
A Civilian Climate Corps Is Broadly Popular
On April 5, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps, enlisting over 3 million young men to conserve America’s public lands. Ninety years later, President Biden has a chance to continue the legacy of the New Deal. New polling from Data for Progress finds that voters support the creation of a Civilian Climate Corps by a +39-point margin, including 88 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of Independents, and a plurality of Republicans.
Data for Progress, January 5, 2023
Today’s Conservative Movement Has Roots in the Capitalist Backlash Against the New Deal, An Interview with historian Kim Phillips-Fein
During the New Deal, right-wing businesspeople were furious that their authority was being challenged in the workplace and in society. So they started organizing. And that’s the origin story of the modern conservative movement.
By Daniel Denvir
Jacobin.com, December 16, 2023
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A War on Polio
“It strikes with its most frequent and devastating force. And that is why much of the future strength of America depends upon the success that we achieve in combating this disease. “It is glorious to have one’s birthday associated with a work like this. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. And that kinship, which human suffering evokes, is perhaps the closest of all, for we know that those who work to help the suffering find true spiritual fellowship in that labor of love.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt, Radio Address for the Birthday Ball, January 30, 1940
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