The Living New Deal
November 11, 2014 1:09 PM Subscribe
In less than a decade, The New Deal changed the face of America and laid the foundation for success in World War II and the prosperity of the postwar era – the greatest and fairest epoch in American history.
The Living New Deal project inventories, maps and publicizes the achievements of the New Deal and its public works in all 50 states and outlying territories.
Browse by state or city, project category or artist. Check out linked New Deal resources, or submit to the database yourself.
Browse by state or city, project category or artist. Check out linked New Deal resources, or submit to the database yourself.
And the couple hundred super-billionaires who currently or will very soon own or control it all say "Thank you, America".
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:36 PM on November 11, 2014
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:36 PM on November 11, 2014
>"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what has the New Deal ever done for us?"
I think what a lot of the people who object to the New Deal are really upset about is that other people (you know, THOSE people) also benefited from those things.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:46 PM on November 11, 2014 [4 favorites]
I think what a lot of the people who object to the New Deal are really upset about is that other people (you know, THOSE people) also benefited from those things.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:46 PM on November 11, 2014 [4 favorites]
a lot of the people who object to the New Deal ..
Real question: do those people exist? Do contemporary right wing public figures speak out against the New Deal, or only against any effort toward modern policies that could be structured like New Deal projects?
posted by latkes at 1:54 PM on November 11, 2014
Real question: do those people exist? Do contemporary right wing public figures speak out against the New Deal, or only against any effort toward modern policies that could be structured like New Deal projects?
posted by latkes at 1:54 PM on November 11, 2014
I think what a lot of the people who object to the New Deal are really upset about is that other people (you know, THOSE people) also benefited from those things.
Cite?
It's a pretty site and all, but there are plenty of reasoned criticisms of the New Deal in particular and the Roosevelt administration in general that can't be refuted with a wink wink nudge nudge accusation of racism.
History is gray.
posted by IndigoJones at 1:56 PM on November 11, 2014
Cite?
It's a pretty site and all, but there are plenty of reasoned criticisms of the New Deal in particular and the Roosevelt administration in general that can't be refuted with a wink wink nudge nudge accusation of racism.
History is gray.
posted by IndigoJones at 1:56 PM on November 11, 2014
I took it as more of a wink wink nudge nudge accusation of classism, and I think it's largely correct.
posted by stenseng at 2:02 PM on November 11, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by stenseng at 2:02 PM on November 11, 2014 [7 favorites]
I think what a lot of the people who object to the New Deal are really upset about is that other people (you know, THOSE people) also benefited from those things.
That, plus your garden-variety fear o'Communism/Socialism/etc. And it's because the government didn't always do a great job of alleviating those concerns, either.
My exhibit A for that is: the WPA Federal Theater program. The woman they appointed to run it, Hallie Flanagan, was actually a great choice - she'd had producing, directing, and playwriting experience, and she had ideas about how to use the Federal Theater program to bring theater to people in areas that wouldn't ordinarily get theater. Which seemed like a great idea - the more shows you have going on, the more actors you have working, and the more people in impoverished areas would benefit, everybody wins!
Thing is, though, Flanagan also had a biiiiiiiiiiiit of a subconscious ulterior motive. She wasn't just thinking of revivals of Desire Under The Elms being brought to podunk towns by the program - she also reached back into her training in Moscow and also came up with entirely new shows she called "Living Newspapers," which used theater and stage shows to discuss contemporary topics. On paper, these things still looked great - they employed a crapton of actors, usually. But they were about things like Musollini's invasion of Ethiopia or the Dust Bowl (in which the players urged the farmers in the audience to unite and fight back against the businessmen trying to buy them off the farms) or the housing crisis or the dangers of electric companies having a monopoly. Even the childrens' shows she wrote had a distinctly "left" flavor. Flanagan got called before Congress more than a few times so they could ask, "Girl, what the hell?" and there was a famous incident where the Federal Theater's house was padlocked and taken over by the National Guard on the day a show was about to open. (The incident was dramatized in the film Cradle Will Rock - and it is one of my all-time favorite theatrical anecdotes ever.)
A few years back, a theater company I once worked with did a staging of the Living Newspaper script Power, which was all about the utilities industry and the Tennessee Valley Authority plan to build a hydroelectric plant in Tennessee. I'd never seen one of the Living Newspapers staged before, and it was amazing - everyone in the audience was talking amongst themselves afterward about it, and again and again I heard people saying "finally I understand how the utilities industry works now!" It made total sense why the Living Newspapers caught everyone's attention so well - but it also made total sense why the people wishing to preserve the Status Quo were scared shitless by them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:12 PM on November 11, 2014 [9 favorites]
That, plus your garden-variety fear o'Communism/Socialism/etc. And it's because the government didn't always do a great job of alleviating those concerns, either.
My exhibit A for that is: the WPA Federal Theater program. The woman they appointed to run it, Hallie Flanagan, was actually a great choice - she'd had producing, directing, and playwriting experience, and she had ideas about how to use the Federal Theater program to bring theater to people in areas that wouldn't ordinarily get theater. Which seemed like a great idea - the more shows you have going on, the more actors you have working, and the more people in impoverished areas would benefit, everybody wins!
Thing is, though, Flanagan also had a biiiiiiiiiiiit of a subconscious ulterior motive. She wasn't just thinking of revivals of Desire Under The Elms being brought to podunk towns by the program - she also reached back into her training in Moscow and also came up with entirely new shows she called "Living Newspapers," which used theater and stage shows to discuss contemporary topics. On paper, these things still looked great - they employed a crapton of actors, usually. But they were about things like Musollini's invasion of Ethiopia or the Dust Bowl (in which the players urged the farmers in the audience to unite and fight back against the businessmen trying to buy them off the farms) or the housing crisis or the dangers of electric companies having a monopoly. Even the childrens' shows she wrote had a distinctly "left" flavor. Flanagan got called before Congress more than a few times so they could ask, "Girl, what the hell?" and there was a famous incident where the Federal Theater's house was padlocked and taken over by the National Guard on the day a show was about to open. (The incident was dramatized in the film Cradle Will Rock - and it is one of my all-time favorite theatrical anecdotes ever.)
A few years back, a theater company I once worked with did a staging of the Living Newspaper script Power, which was all about the utilities industry and the Tennessee Valley Authority plan to build a hydroelectric plant in Tennessee. I'd never seen one of the Living Newspapers staged before, and it was amazing - everyone in the audience was talking amongst themselves afterward about it, and again and again I heard people saying "finally I understand how the utilities industry works now!" It made total sense why the Living Newspapers caught everyone's attention so well - but it also made total sense why the people wishing to preserve the Status Quo were scared shitless by them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:12 PM on November 11, 2014 [9 favorites]
Ayn Rand people think the New Deal was bad. There are millions of them.
posted by colie at 2:12 PM on November 11, 2014
posted by colie at 2:12 PM on November 11, 2014
New Deal projects were a mixed bag in terms of their impacts on African Americans, but many actually reinforced the racist status quo of the day. A short summary here. Not sure what anyone is suggesting about race and class and the New Deal here...
I certainly agree that many New Deal policies were socialist in nature and those working within them often held a socialist ideology. That wasn't as much of a dirty word in the 30s. Lots of stuff we still do is socialist: libraries, fire departments, roads.
posted by latkes at 2:16 PM on November 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
I certainly agree that many New Deal policies were socialist in nature and those working within them often held a socialist ideology. That wasn't as much of a dirty word in the 30s. Lots of stuff we still do is socialist: libraries, fire departments, roads.
posted by latkes at 2:16 PM on November 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
IndigoJones: It's a pretty site and all, but there are plenty of reasoned criticisms of the New Deal in particular and the Roosevelt administration in general that can't be refuted with a wink wink nudge nudge accusation of racism.
Dispositive proof that any particular person or group of people who dislike the New Deal do so out of racial animus would be hard to come by, but Katznelson makes a persuasive case that the implementation of the new deal was explicitly racist in When Affirmative Action Was White. Likewise, the negative views of today's so-called conservatives toward the expansion of the safety net may or may not be grounded in bigotry, but they do tend to hand-wave away the fact that the people most harmed by reductions in safety net spending would be disproportionately people of color, and no, supply-side fairy dust does not count as a valid response to that accusation.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:17 PM on November 11, 2014 [4 favorites]
Dispositive proof that any particular person or group of people who dislike the New Deal do so out of racial animus would be hard to come by, but Katznelson makes a persuasive case that the implementation of the new deal was explicitly racist in When Affirmative Action Was White. Likewise, the negative views of today's so-called conservatives toward the expansion of the safety net may or may not be grounded in bigotry, but they do tend to hand-wave away the fact that the people most harmed by reductions in safety net spending would be disproportionately people of color, and no, supply-side fairy dust does not count as a valid response to that accusation.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:17 PM on November 11, 2014 [4 favorites]
tonycpsu, if you haven't seen it already, Katznelson's "Fear Itself" goes into extensive detail about the ways in which Congressmen from Jim Crow states refused to sign onto key New Deal provisions if the provisions benefitted black people.
posted by wuwei at 2:32 PM on November 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by wuwei at 2:32 PM on November 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
> "Do contemporary right wing public figures speak out against the New Deal ... ?"
Oh, yeah, totally. A couple of friends of mine listen to a lot of right-wing talk radio and sometimes parrot the talking points. One of them is that "the New Deal actually extended the duration of the Great Depression!" Which is complete bullshit, but they were convinced that things would have been just fine if we'd stuck with Hoover.
posted by kyrademon at 2:35 PM on November 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
Oh, yeah, totally. A couple of friends of mine listen to a lot of right-wing talk radio and sometimes parrot the talking points. One of them is that "the New Deal actually extended the duration of the Great Depression!" Which is complete bullshit, but they were convinced that things would have been just fine if we'd stuck with Hoover.
posted by kyrademon at 2:35 PM on November 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
Oh and just so no one thinks I'm casting aspersions:
Speaking on the Fair Labor Standards Act "Representative James Mark Wilcox, a Florida Democrat, spoke about how "there has always been a difference in the wage scale of white and colored labor...You cannot put the Negro and the white man on the same basis and get away with it . . .. This bill, like the antilynching bill, is another political goldbrick for the Negro.'" From Katznelson, Fear Itself.
posted by wuwei at 2:49 PM on November 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
Speaking on the Fair Labor Standards Act "Representative James Mark Wilcox, a Florida Democrat, spoke about how "there has always been a difference in the wage scale of white and colored labor...You cannot put the Negro and the white man on the same basis and get away with it . . .. This bill, like the antilynching bill, is another political goldbrick for the Negro.'" From Katznelson, Fear Itself.
posted by wuwei at 2:49 PM on November 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
the New Deal actually extended the duration of the Great Depression
wow... oy.
posted by latkes at 3:15 PM on November 11, 2014
wow... oy.
posted by latkes at 3:15 PM on November 11, 2014
I recently took a part-time position as the manager of a community theater in the basement of a socialist grocery store in the center of a visionary planned city of cooperatives created in the New Deal that so irked Joseph McCarthy that he tried to stab it to death with a highway, and the glory of what the New Deal could do is all around me. It's a place with a spirit to it, and when I walk around on my lunch break, or when I'm making errands in the city core, I'm reminded of how well it works. It's an extraordinary feeling to be so immersed in something even more wonderful than it was at the time of its conception.
P.S. The New Deal gave us the Civilian Conservation Corps, which, in addition to the amazing architectural structures they built and the massive upgrades to the public space, produced the sexiest and most celebratory gay porn ever to emerge joyously from the magazine of a Brownie.
posted by sonascope at 4:10 PM on November 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
P.S. The New Deal gave us the Civilian Conservation Corps, which, in addition to the amazing architectural structures they built and the massive upgrades to the public space, produced the sexiest and most celebratory gay porn ever to emerge joyously from the magazine of a Brownie.
posted by sonascope at 4:10 PM on November 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
FDR was the guy suggesting a 100% income tax above $25k, and then settled for 94% tax; this was long after the New Deal though. I'm pretty sure he's enemy number one for some people, and remember this being talked about in some libertarian FPPs or elsewhere. There's so much racism that got perpetuated as part of the New Deal, but at least it introduced work week caps, child labor laws, and other social nets. It definitely sucks for many people that civil liberties didn't become the major political talking point until the 60's, but I wonder what would have happened if the Democrat/Republican paradigm shift had happened during FDR's reign. Would we be seeing the same deconstruction of business restrictions and social nets? Would Republicans have been helped or hindered by the lack of modern communication and electronics?
On a slight tangent, civil libertarian is a wonderful term.
posted by halifix at 4:27 PM on November 11, 2014
On a slight tangent, civil libertarian is a wonderful term.
posted by halifix at 4:27 PM on November 11, 2014
"Flood Control," F. Edward Hebert Federal Building, New Orleans LA. (large image)
posted by audi alteram partem at 6:04 PM on November 11, 2014
posted by audi alteram partem at 6:04 PM on November 11, 2014
Dispositive proof that any particular person or group of people who dislike the New Deal do so out of racial animus would be hard to come by,
Quite so. Which is exactly why you should hesitate to go there. I will, however, take a look at Katznelson, thank you for the recommendation.
wow... oy.
You're surprised? There's a lot written on this topic, has been for some time.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:14 PM on November 11, 2014
Quite so. Which is exactly why you should hesitate to go there. I will, however, take a look at Katznelson, thank you for the recommendation.
wow... oy.
You're surprised? There's a lot written on this topic, has been for some time.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:14 PM on November 11, 2014
The WPA mural at my old high school isn't on there! It was really cool, too - all larger-than-life noble farmers bringing in the harvest and shit.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:27 PM on November 11, 2014
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:27 PM on November 11, 2014
Huh, I wonder how many of my Mechanical Engineering brethern at the University of Alabama knew that Hardaway Hall, where the ME dept still lives, was a product of this era and policy. Not many, if any, I bet. I sure didn't.
And they were mostly, when you got right down to it, of the political point of view that would certainly frown upon projects like that nowadays. If not downright sneer.
*sigh*... I suppose it's one of the, admittedly many, reasons I'm not using my degree right now. I'd be surrounded by folk of that bent... and life... life is too damn short.
I know one thing, picking a major simply because I was good, ok really good, at math and the hard sciences while still being young enough to think 'just make money and everything else will follow' hasn't really turned out as well as I thought it would. But I digress... and will now start drinking.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:42 PM on November 11, 2014
And they were mostly, when you got right down to it, of the political point of view that would certainly frown upon projects like that nowadays. If not downright sneer.
*sigh*... I suppose it's one of the, admittedly many, reasons I'm not using my degree right now. I'd be surrounded by folk of that bent... and life... life is too damn short.
I know one thing, picking a major simply because I was good, ok really good, at math and the hard sciences while still being young enough to think 'just make money and everything else will follow' hasn't really turned out as well as I thought it would. But I digress... and will now start drinking.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:42 PM on November 11, 2014
sonascope, I know your predecessor, and the area around the theater is wonderful. I lived there temporarily after moving to Maryland. My son loves the maker space there. It's a great testament to the virtues of government programs.
posted by wintermind at 6:44 PM on November 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by wintermind at 6:44 PM on November 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
IndigoJones: Quite so. Which is exactly why you should hesitate to go there.
Well, I didn't go there. What I said was that, in my book, indifference toward the racially-biased outcomes of policy is tantamount to racism itself. You're free to disagree, but I never said that all opposition to New Deal programs (or other social welfare programs) is racist.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:56 PM on November 11, 2014
Well, I didn't go there. What I said was that, in my book, indifference toward the racially-biased outcomes of policy is tantamount to racism itself. You're free to disagree, but I never said that all opposition to New Deal programs (or other social welfare programs) is racist.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:56 PM on November 11, 2014
It's a pretty site and all, but there are plenty of reasoned criticisms of the New Deal in particular and the Roosevelt administration in general that can't be refuted with a wink wink nudge nudge accusation of racism.
Uh....are you responding to this comment?
I think what a lot of the people who object to the New Deal are really upset about is that other people (you know, THOSE people) also benefited from those things.
Because it was pretty clear to me that the "those people" was implying the "those people" were poor, not non-white.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:08 PM on November 11, 2014
Uh....are you responding to this comment?
I think what a lot of the people who object to the New Deal are really upset about is that other people (you know, THOSE people) also benefited from those things.
Because it was pretty clear to me that the "those people" was implying the "those people" were poor, not non-white.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:08 PM on November 11, 2014
The New Deal is still being fought the same way the Civil War is still being fought. "The New Deal extended the length of the great depression" is a standard conservative talking point and much of conservative political goal setting for the past three quarters of a century is an explicit attempt to undo policies from that era. People think conservatives want Reagan back but what they really want is Hoover.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:45 PM on November 11, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:45 PM on November 11, 2014 [5 favorites]
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Seriously though, this kind of think makes me love the internet.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:25 PM on November 11, 2014 [5 favorites]