WHAT WAS THE "BIG DEAL" OF FDR's "NEW DEAL"?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/84605

Gary Ater
December 11, 2008


<<< A TVA Dam.

I forget sometimes, that there is very little US history taught today in America´s public schools. I also forget how many new generations of Americans have been born since the 1950´s.

Most of these younger Americans have no idea as to what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt´s "New Deal" was, or how it came to change and grow America for a large portion of the 20th Century.

One of those obviously younger, on-line readers recently responded to my article about a possible "New, New Deal" from President-Elect Obama for today´s America. The reader asked me "What was so great about FDR´s ´New Deal´ ? What was the big deal about building some roads and schools and other government buildings?"

I guess, a question like that today, from someone that is under 30 years of age and had only attended local American public schools, that is probably a very fair question.

If we don´t take into consideration the tremendous, positive psychological effect that the first 100 days of FDR´s "New Deal" presidency had on all of America, there are still substantial physical examples today of what occurred from 1933 on, that demonstrate why the "New Deal" was such a "big deal" for most working Americans.

BIG DEAL RESULTS:

Roosevelt´s vast government development programs and the results of what became known as the "alphabet soup of government agencies" were as follows:

The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)

The CCC was disbanded after only 9 years. The agency was disbanded, so that its members could join the military to fight for the US in World War II. However, during those 9 years, 3 million men had been given meaningful work.

FULL story at link.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. My father was in the CCC

As a young man out of high school, unable to find work, he joined up and always told me stories about what a great time he'd had. He even took me on drives, showing me where they'd done fire clearings and he was always so proud of what he'd done in the "Cs," as he called them.

Then, he was called up for WWII.

I would love to see something like the CCC in this country. And the WPA. Oh, the things that we could accomplish! The good that could be done. And I'd love to see Americorps VISTA expanded and better funded. The good that could be done just brings tears to my eyes.

[Omaha Steve]

2. Same as my dad

He too got called up and was already in the US Army before Pearl Harbor. He didn't talk about it much. My mom told me some of his stories from it though.

[hlthe2b]

3. It is so tragic that this history is not fully understood by all Americans

I have HAD it with ANTI-Intellectualism, NCLB, "intelligent design" and everything else that has decimated or educational system and dumbed down multiple generations of Americans.

Good post, Omaha Steve... But, I did need to rant...

[BrklynLiberal]

4. How many of us would even be here today if it were not for the New Deal?

Baby Boomers were all children of, and/or children of children of the New Deal.

[madrchsod]

7. i absorbed a lot of those times from my parents and grandparents

my parents had family and friends that all shared what they had..

[madrchsod]

5. my father worked for ronny reagan`s dad

when ron`s dad and brother found steady work managing the ccc he became a "fdr democrat". my dad planted trees and other park improvements.

there are post office around here that still have murals painted in the 30`s...yes they actually put artists to work.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. The WPA put artists and writers to work

Artists such as Milton Avery, Stuart Davis, Mark Rothko, Willem deKooning and Jackson Pollock were just a few of the thousands of artists on the WPA Project who have achieved worldwide recognition. Many, many other artists, who were also on the project, such as Aaron Berkman, Jules Halfant, Max Arthur Cohn, Norman Barr and Gertrude Shibley are in museum collections, exhibitions and are in many private collections, but are not as yet nationally known.

W.P.A. was the abbreviation for the WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION, a government funded arts program which had an artists division. The WPA was originally known as the P.W.A.P. and it existed in the mid 1930's to the mid 1940's. The artists who participated in the WPA ranged from figurative and academic, all the way to abstraction and surrealism, in addition to almost every other school of painting, sculpture and the graphic arts including prints and posters. The WPA was an idea that George Biddle presented to his close friend and classmate, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Biddle was a talented painter who felt the plight of the unfortunate and poor arts community during the Depression. He prevailed upon F.D.R. to create a program for this group of creative people. The W.P.A. program and FEDERAL PROJECT NO. 1, as it was called, included many projects, among which were the Art, Music, Theater and Writers Projects. Government funding of the arts community continued until the mid 1940's, when the WPA was disbanded.

The Artists Project was organized across the United States. The New York WPA had the largest membership of all the projects in the United States. Over 5,000 artists throughout the nation were involved. New York accounted for about one-half of the national figure. An eligibility process was organized, whereby the artists interested in participating on the WPA would apply to a panel of their peers, They first had to prove they were in financial need unless they were in a supervisory job. There, the artists would submit their work with any publicity, resume or exhibition records that they had. On the basis of the artists training experience and ability, the artists then received assignments. The pay scale ranged from $23.00 a week to approximately $35.00 a week. The artists waited on line each week to receive their checks and this waiting line very often became an opportunity for the artists to socialize with and meet one another.

New York, the heads of the committees to determine the artists eligibility were Burgoyne Diller for murals, Girolamo Piccoli for sculpture, Ernest Limbach and Gustave Von Groschwitz for graphics and Alexander Stavenitz for teachers. There were assistant artists who aided the muralists or architectural sculptors. There were also models and framemakers. The project also employed art restorers and publicists for the artists. In addition, there were the photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans and Ben Shahn who developed their photography skills on the WPA project.
<snip>

http://www.fineartstrader.com/wpa.htm

The most far-reaching of the public works programs was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), established in 1935 Video Interview Stan Jensenby executive order and funded by Congress that same year.

The goal was to put unemployed people to work building projects like highways, airfields, public buildings, planting trees and doing rural rehabilitation. Workers were paid $15 to $90 a month, depending on the job. As Stan Jensen remembers it, most WPA workers on the plains got the going rate of $1.00 a day.

Eventually, Congress appropriated money specifically for the WPA. The first year's payroll totaled $4,880,000,000. That's almost $5-billion – an amazing amount of money in the late 1930s. The WPA funds took people off the relief roles and gave them productive work.
<snip>
During its eight-year life from 1935 through 1943, the WPA employed 8.5 million workers. They worked on 1.4 million projects, including 651,087 miles of roads, 124,031 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks and 853 airport landing fields.

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/money_16.html

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Those that were in the CCC have been having reunions and passing on their knowledge

http://forestarmy.blogspot.com/2007/10/national-ccc-reunion-huge-success.html

http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/lee/cultural/ccc/ccc_reunion.shtml

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/learning/webcasts/courage/reunion.phtml

http://www.main.nc.us/graham/mcclung/CCC%20Reunion%20Held.html

http://www.insidenova.com/isn/news/local/article/park_to_honor_cccs_75th_anniversary/21739/

[madrchsod]

8. our national parks need billions in repairs

nice place to start---rebuilding the work our fathers and grandfather built

thanks for the links

[izquierdista]

10. Younger, on-line readers

Perhaps if they were to go somewhere with no "roads and schools and other government buildings", like Somalia, Zimbabwe, Mali, Afghanistan, Moldova, Bolivia, Honduras, or any of dozens of other countries, they would gain a little more appreciation. I am always amazed at the American ability to take things for granted; that the surplus that Clinton carefully won over the '90s could be shot in a couple years.

However, it is understandable. Without any frame of reference for how the world around them got the way it is, they have no idea of doing without as well as no idea of how much better it could be.

[jwirr]

11. I was privileged to work as an archivist at a local museum in NE

MN and be able to meet the former CCC workers who came in to see what we had in photos and artifacts. I made it an opportunity to learn from them. CCC was more than roads, buildings and dams. These men came into the camps so dispirited that they no longer believed in themselves. The camps gave them heart. They created things and sent money home to support their families. They were men again. I would take the long pictures of camp members out of the files and show them. They would find themselves and then spend hours identifying friends and leaders they had learned to love. They spent time talking about the stories and friendships and what it had meant to their lives. I never heard anyone wish that the CCC had not occurred.

I think we could especially use CCC and WPA programs to rebuild inner cities to be ready for the 21st Century making them green and productive again.

Every time I drive past a row of very straight pine trees along the roads I remember FDR. Our parks up here on the North shore have beautifully constructed rock buildings and paths that are still used.

These projects are what probably made that generation what Brokaw calls the "greatest".

That our children are not learning this history is one of the biggest crimes of the system we now have in place. They are the story of mans victory over adversity.

[tech3149]

12. I'm from an old mining town

My Dad went to WV to work for the CCC because most of the mines were closed or played out. That made it possible for him to make a living, no matter how meager, until he joined the army. If you hike the Appalachian trail or other national parks you can still enjoy the results of the CCC. Much of what they and the WPA did aren't very visible, but they still have an impact on our lives today.