The WPA

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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...ult-180953570/?utm_source=facebook.com&no-ist

 

[LizzieMaine]

Our local recreation center and our regional airport are both WPA projects that are not only surviving but thriving. An eighty-year return on investment, with more yet to come.

For a detailed look at what the WPA and other New Deal agencies did for your town, take a look at Living New Deal.

 

[rjb1]

Among other things here, one of our local State (TN) Parks was built by the WPA. (I guess the park itself was made by Nature, but the infrastructure was done by the WPA.)
Each year they have "WPA Days" at the park to commemorate those origins. People come in 1930's outfits and display and demonstrate older tools and techniques (blacksmithing, wood cutting, stone-masonry, etc). They also have "old-time" live music and free "Depression" food - white beans and cornbread.
It's a fun day and conveys at least a little bit of history to modern people.

 

[scotrace]

The High School and Post Office are WPA projects, still in use. Though there is a clamor to demolish the school and replace it. Two failed ballot attempts so far. The locals just ain't buying it.

The School project is documented in photos in my dad's 1939 yearbook.

 

[Stearmen]

Funny you should bring this up! I was out for a walk in our oldest park, when I noticed signs all around asking for donations to repoint the mortar on all the WPA stone works. There are quite a few of them, some have just recently been reclaimed from Mother Nature.

 

[FStephenMasek]

FDR's Folly is a good book I highly recommend. It and many other writings provide more details on what happened back then.

 

[jamespowers]

FDR's Folly is a good book I highly recommend. It and many other writings provide more details on what happened back then.

Agreed.

 

[sheeplady]

My middle school (once the entire school) was built by the WPA in 1937 (finished). It is not listed on the Living New Deal site, but I don't know of any original source material or where to find it, since I am no longer in the area. A web search turns up nothing, and I am not sure what sort of archives around here would have that material since I am a good distance away.

It was a beautiful school when I went there. There was in the old kindergarten room (later administrative offices) the alphabet in colors in the Terrazzo floor with numbers surrounding it; a bowling alley/ shooting range in the basement (later storage); and a host of other great things. They even replaced the windows that they cemented over in the 1980s to save energy with the full original style windows a few years ago. I am sure it was not the biggest or brightest or nicest school, but in the area I grew up it was the only centralized school for decades. The next school to centralize was in 1955 in the area, and there were still one room school houses operating into the 1980s.

While I know it's not uncommon to have one room schoolhouses in places like North Dakota or Montana, this is NY state, a much more populated place.

 

[LizzieMaine]

FDR's Folly is a good book I highly recommend. It and many other writings provide more details on what happened back then.

I got as far as "Cato Institute historian." Forgive me if I don't trust a militantly anti-labor libertarian think-tanker who trumpets an endorsement by Milton Friedman to present any kind of a careful, measured assessment of any aspect of the New Deal. That's like asking Richard Dawkins to explain theology.

The WPA had its flaws -- it was often poorly managed, many of its administrators -- especially in, but by no means limited to, the South -- were deeply racist, and there were too many white-collared featherbedders at the top leeching up money that should have gone to the people at the bottom. But I am willing to overlook every single one of those, and any other flaws for one big reason: the WPA kept my grandparents alive in 1937. And it kept a lot of other peoples' grandparents alive, too.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

The post office in my home town was built as a WPA project in 1941. I can still picture a bas relief, in the style which is best described as "socialist realism" showing factory and farm workers with bulging muscles holding hammers and sickles, on the interior wall near where the wanted posters are hung. I guess no one in the 1950's connected this with Soviet ideology or it would surely have been taken down.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Hart Park, Orange, California
A place I'm very familiar with. I've always thought this would make a great venue for a little FL picnic or barbecue.

[video=youtube;8t_mbSwlPhE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t_mbSwlPhE[/video]

Other places in Southern California that was built by the WPA was the L.A. County Fairgrounds (aka The Fairplex) in Pomona. Though these buildings had gotten a facelift over the years they were built around 1937-38.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I got as far as "Cato Institute historian." Forgive me if I don't trust a militantly anti-labor libertarian think-tanker who trumpets an endorsement by Milton Friedman to present any kind of a careful, measured assessment of any aspect of the New Deal. That's like asking Richard Dawkins to explain theology.

The WPA had its flaws -- it was often poorly managed, many of its administrators -- especially in, but by no means limited to, the South -- were deeply racist, and there were too many white-collared featherbedders at the top leeching up money that should have gone to the people at the bottom. But I am willing to overlook every single one of those, and any other flaws for one big reason: the WPA kept my grandparents alive in 1937. And it kept a lot of other peoples' grandparents alive, too.

Couldn't agree more, on all points. Certainly kept food on the table for my grandparents as well.

 

[Stearmen]

I got as far as "Cato Institute historian." Forgive me if I don't trust a militantly anti-labor libertarian think-tanker who trumpets an endorsement by Milton Friedman to present any kind of a careful, measured assessment of any aspect of the New Deal. That's like asking Richard Dawkins to explain theology.

The WPA had its flaws -- it was often poorly managed, many of its administrators -- especially in, but by no means limited to, the South -- were deeply racist, and there were too many white-collared featherbedders at the top leeching up money that should have gone to the people at the bottom. But I am willing to overlook every single one of those, and any other flaws for one big reason: the WPA kept my grandparents alive in 1937. And it kept a lot of other peoples' grandparents alive, too.

Another thing the revisionist historians leave out about the WPA is, Roosevelt was not a fool, he new he had agitators on both sides, Stalin loving Left Wingers and Mussolini, (he was bigger then Hitler at the time,) loving Right Wingers. He knew, millions of young unemployed males, is not good, idle hands as it were. The more he could put to work the better, less time to listen to the radicals on the two extremes. Say what you want, it did work.

 

[Stearmen]

Hart Park, Orange, California
A place I'm very familiar with. I've always thought this would make a great venue for a little FL picnic or barbecue.

[video=youtube;8t_mbSwlPhE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t_mbSwlPhE[/video]

Other places in Southern California that was built by the WPA was the L.A. County Fairgrounds (aka The Fairplex) in Pomona. Though these buildings had gotten a facelift over the years they were built around 1937-38.

That looks a lot like ours. Modern park designers could learn a lot from those planers!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Another thing the revisionist historians leave out about the WPA is, Roosevelt was not a fool, he new he had agitators on both sides, Stalin loving Left Wingers and Mussolini, (he was bigger then Hitler at the time,) loving Right Wingers. He knew, millions of young unemployed males, is not good, idle hands as it were. The more he could put to work the better, less time to listen to the radicals on the two extremes. Say what you want, it did work.

Quite right. The alternatives during the mid-thirties were not Old Deal vs. New Deal. They were New Deal or revolution.

 

[emigran]

Speaking of Grandparents and WPA jobs... I am the proud owner of two WPA hammers that survived from my Granddad who was a workman/plumber/mason at the time. One is a masonry hammer the other is a ballpeen. Both are emblazoned with the WPA mark. THey are reassured possessions.

 

[Stearmen]

Here are a few of our WPA projects in one of our parks I took photos of today. They also did the main building for our High School down town. Shame we don't have public projects like this today.

 

[Dan Allen]

It is amazing how well these works have held up, especially considering the lack of maintenance some have had.
I have serious doubts if many of today's few works will look as good .

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

It is amazing how well these works have held up, especially considering the lack of maintenance some have had.
I have serious doubts if many of today's few works will look as good .

Just like almost everything else buildings are also disposable, designed to be torn down in 10 years and replaced with a clone just as fugly as its predecessor.

 

[DecoDame]

Thanks for that link to Living New Deal, Lizzie. I'm enjoying reading about the projects in my area. There are some great period photos of workers in some of the entries, such as this:


(And I'm a sucker for old photos including dogs, too)