FDR&

a New Dealfor

America

The Works Progress Administration (WPA)

• Created May 1935• Most important federal employment program

– employing avg. 2.3 million per month!– 8.5 million different people employed overall– 1.4 million projects funded

• Types of workers: manual laborers, authors, artists, photographers

• Types of work: built bridges, roads, parks, airfields, schools, hospitals, wrote & produced plays, made educating and advertising posters, documented slave narratives, photographed the Depression, etc.

WPA Success at UNITING America

• The economic crisis of the 1930s focused the attention of Americans on the lives and struggles of ordinary folk. Not surprisingly, much New Deal art reflected this preoccupation with "the people."

• Visual artists, writers, filmmakers, and playwrights concentrated many of their creative efforts on the patterns of everyday life, especially the world of work.

• A recurring theme was the strength and dignity of common men and women, even as they faced difficult circumstances.

WPA Success at UNITING America

• This helped to unite Americans in their understanding of the Depression, of the vastness of the land they occupied and needed, of the common concerns they had, and of the need for them to share the responsibility of citizenship that a democracy requires.

• With art, the WPA also provided a different kind of “relief” from the Depression – psychological.

Wall Hanging by WPA Handcraft Project, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

By an unknown artist, Milwaukee Handcraft Project, WPA, ca. 1935-42

Block-printed clothFranklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 70-117B)

New York : Federal Art Project, 1936 or 1937

Poster promoting better living conditions by keeping tenement neighborhoods clean.

Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress)

• New York : Federal Art Project, between 1936 and 1941

• Poster promoting early treatment for syphilis, showing cured and sick men.

• Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress).

                                                                              

                               

              

                                                                                               

[1936 or 1937]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-5332.

Handbills for Chicago, Illinois, production of Spirochete

Illinois Federal Theatre Project, WPA, 1938National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration(Federal Theater Records, Vassar Collection of Programs and Promotional Materials, Box 156)

A "Living Newspaper," Spirochete describes the history of humanity's struggle against venereal disease. Public health experts such as the Surgeon General assisted with the script's development and endorsed its proposed solution--nationwide premarital screening. The advertisement shown here emphasizes the play's position that prudery and ignorance only aided the spread of this scourge.

John Buczak. [1940]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-1592.

Benjamin Sheer. [1936]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-5647.

Earl Schuler. [between 1936 and 1940]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-5660.

I am a photographer hired by a democratic government to take pictures of its land and its people. The idea is to show New York to Texans and Texas to New York.

--Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration photographer, U.S. Camera One, 1941.

Dorothea Lange

CREATED/PUBLISHED1935 June.

REPRODUCTION NUMBERLC-USZ62-56051 DLC (b&w film copy neg. from file print)

COLLECTIONFarm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Home of a dust bowl refugee in California. Imperial County.

Dorothea Lange, photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED1937 Mar.

REPRODUCTION NUMBERLC-USF34-016264-C DLC (b&w film neg.)

COLLECTIONFarm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Russel Lee, photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED1942 Feb.

REPRODUCTION NUMBERLC-USF34-072000-D DLC (b&w film neg.)

COLLECTIONFarm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress

Dust storm. Oklahoma. Arthur Rothstein, photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED1936 Apr.

REPRODUCTION NUMBERLC-USF34-004085-E DLC (b&w film neg.)

COLLECTIONFarm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

The winds of the "dust bowl" have piled up large drifts of soil against this farmer's barn near Liberal, Kansas.

Arthur Rothstein, photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED1936 Mar.

Dust storm. It was conditions of this sort which forced many farmers to abandon the area.

Spring 1935. New Mexico. Dorothea Lange, photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED 1935 Apr. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF34-002812-E DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

• "CCC Boys at Work"Prince George County, Virginia

•Franklin D. Roosevelt LibraryPublic Domain Photographs1882-1962ARC Identifier: 195829

WPA Sewing Shop,

New York City

• National Archives and Records AdministrationWorks Progress AdministrationRecord Group 69ARC Identifier: 518269

• Unemployed Men Eating in Volunteers of America Soup Kitchen, Washington, D.C.

• Franklin D. Roosevelt LibraryPublic Domain Photographs1882-1962ARC Identifier: 19582

• "Stringing rural TVA transmission line."Rural Electrification Administration (REA) - Tennessee Valley Administration (TVA)

• Franklin D. Roosevelt LibraryPublic Domain Photographs1882-1962ARC Identifier: 195878

Figures Silhouetted Against a Backdrop of the Constitution,WPA: Federal Theater Project

Franklin D. Roosevelt LibraryPublic Domain Photographs1882-1962 ARC Identifier: 197267

• In depicting the course of daily life, New Deal artists memorialized routine events such as waiting for a train or watching workers from a city window. Behind these celebrations of the mundane, however, lay a belief that such vignettes represented the essence of modern American life as lived by most individuals. Artists considered it to be their responsibility to capture such core experiences.

Michigan artist Alfred Castagne sketching WPA construction workersBy an unknown photographer, May 19, 1939

National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration(69-AG-410)

• The RiveterBy Ben Shahn, Treasury Section of Fine Arts, 1938Tempera on paperboard

• National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, transfer from General Services Administration(77.1.77)

• Working Girls Going HomeBy Raphael Soyer, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, 1937Lithograph

• Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-323)

• Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration(MO 56-271)

El Station, Sunday MorningBy Jack Markow, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, ca. 1935-39 Lithograph

• In the DugoutBy Paul Clemens, Wisconsin Federal Art Project, WPA, 1938Oil on masonite

• Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-330)

Waiting for the MailBy Grant Wright Christian, Treasury Relief Art Project, 1937 38Oil on canvas

National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, transfer from General Services Administration

"Federal Ballet Presents"Illinois Federal Theatre Project

• National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration(Federal Theater Project, Vassar Collection of Programs and Promotional MaterialJericho-PA folder, Box 159)

Children's festival for pupils of the Federal Music Project classes held in Central Park, New York City.By an unknown photographer, New York City Federal Music Project, undated

National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration(69-N-18359)

Fishermen's VillageBy Edmund Lewandowski, Wisconsin Federal Art Project, WPA, 1937 Watercolor and gouache over pencil Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-332)

History of Southern Illinois By Paul Kelpe, Illinois Federal Art Project, WPA, ca. 1935-39 Gouache Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-331)

Untitled Winter Scene (Chicago street)By Ceil Rosenberg, Public Works of Art Project, 1934 Oil on canvas

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 69-62)

Indian Village By Julius Twohy, Washington Federal Art Project, WPA, ca. 1935-39 Lithograph Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-327)

"Church in shacktown community. It is used by different sects, including Pentecostal. The curtains are made of flour sacks. . . . Near Modesto, Stanislaus County, California, May 10, 1940"

By Dorothea Lange, Bureau of Agricultural EconomicsNational Archives, Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (83-G-41382)

Photograph from the "Food for New York City" series

By Sol Libsohn, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, 1939 National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (69-ANP-8-P3032-85)

• Follow this link in order to see the series on working – a very impressive set

• http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/new_deal_for_the_arts/work_pays_america.html

SOURCES

• US National Archives (NARA) http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/fdr_inaugural_address/fdr_inaugural_address.html

• http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/new_deal_for_the_arts/celebrating_the_people1.html#

• Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html