May Read: When Artists (and Others) Worked

Artist: Vera Bock
Library of Congress

When Art Worked: The New Deal, Art, and Democracy
Text by Roger G. Kennedy; "An Illustrated Documentary by David Larkin" - 2009

Former director of the National Park Service and Director Emeritus, National Museum of American History, Kennedy provides the text for Larkin's lavish design.

This oversize volume's heft comes from its profuse illustrations, which include American art preceding the New Deal—sometimes by a century or two. The authors mean to provide context for what was created under the Works Progress Administration, although the result is somewhat sprawling.

The chapter on "Indians, Parks, the CCC, and the Arts," for instance, covers eighteenth and nineteenth century painters' portrayals of Indians; Western landscape painting; the work of Audubon—all factors, Kennedy writes, in helping build a popular constituency for conservation, and ultimately, establishment of national parks.

With the New Deal, Roosevelt doubled the size of the National Park System to fifty-six parks, monuments, and other holdings. Previously administered by a mix of agencies, authority was now consolidated under the NPS, and Civilian Conservation Corps labor was employed for park development and maintenance. Ultimately, about 120,000 young men built structures; planted trees; constructed roads, trails, and bridges; and in all, created much of our parks legacy.

As in other WPA programs, the CCC employed artists and photographers to document and publicize the work, and Kennedy acknowledges those efforts—along with the CCC projects themselves—as part of the entire "WPA art" enterprise.

The book uses recent photographs to illustrate a range of CCC park projects as they look today. Among the examples are:

Restorations of historic structures (Mingus Mill, Shenandoah National Park).

Historic reconstructions, like Bandelier Historic District in Bandelier National Monument. [Some interior details are here and here.]

New construction using local materials (Lake Taghkanic State Park, New York).

Dam building or improvement (Cherry Plain State Park, New York).

The book provides a good overview of the numerous arts-connected programs established under the WPA. It also notes the various agencies and funding mechanisms used to create projects. An example: with 1100 new post offices built by WPA labor and a Department of Treasury charged with commissioning art for federal buildings, the mural painting program was born.

I admit to largely skimming Kennedy's text, which had a heavy historical focus on Great Men (plus a couple of women)—FDR and members of his administration.

For background, a good online history of the rise and demise of the arts programs is Don Adams' and Arlene Goldbard's "New Deal Cultural Programs: Experiments in Cultural Democracy."

Kennedy and Larkin do cover an impressive range of arts projects enabled by New Deal.

The large chapter on parks includes architectural drawings of historic houses, churches, lighthouses, and other structures, done for the Historic American Buildings Survey.

An "Art at Work on the Park Landscape" sub-section includes bridges (Stevens Creek Bridge, Mt Rainier) and roads (Sequoia and Kings Canyon Tunnel Rock.)

Another section, "Civic Parks," includes more WPA-built projects, like San Antonio Riverwalk.

My search for images akin to what's in the book led to these great kos diaries about some forgotten history of our gubmint-hating southern states:

The nation's first CCC project, Shenandoah National Park;

WPA development of Texas parks (including Riverwalk).

A chapter on the Federal Music Project notes local programs around the country, where musicians were employed in giving public concerts and providing school music instruction. In 1932 John Lomax had begun field recordings of folk musicians for the Library of Congress; he later served in WPA projects that extended this work.

A section on the Federal Theatre Project includes a number of nice poster designs.

Library of Congress
Artist: Aida McKenzie

Kennedy quotes lyrics from "Sing For Your Supper," which poked fun at anti-New Deal perceptions and propaganda.

A skit featured WPA workers, toy shovels in hands, singing—

When you look at things today
Like Boulder Dam and TVA
And all those playgrounds where kids can play
We did it—by leaning on a shovel!

Library of Congress
Artist: Vera Bock

A chapter on photography as used to document the effects of the Depression is illustrated by work from the major names active in the program. It's no surprise that the artistic standouts are nine pages of photos by Walker Evans.

The book ends, in Kennedy's words, with

... three examples of the redemptive power of art, as it served the American polity during the New Deal period. In each case the materials were at hand, but like the land itself, had been abused, neglected, or insufficiently appreciated; in each, a program of public works provided jobs and occasions for gifts of genius toward the public good.

Red Rocks Amphitheater, near Denver, was built over five years. (A closeup of some construction details is here.

Oregon's Timberline Lodge was created 6000 feet up a slope of Mt. Hood. Kennedy writes of how

...Building trade laborers received the top rate of ninety cents per hour, and unskilled laborers fifty-five cents per hour. The price of materials was kept down by using recycled goods. Women wove upholstery, drapes and bedspreads, and hand-hooked rugs from cut-up CCC blankets and other scraps. Newell posts were fashioned from cedar utility poles, their crowns carved into bears, seals and other animals. The screens hanging in front of the fireplaces were made from the tire chains of the trucks that carried materials and workers up the mountain, and the fireplace andirons were forged from old railroad rails...

There's a nice look at some interior details here.

La Purísima, outside Lompoc, was a restoration of a disused mission first founded in the eighteenth century. After the project was conceived in 1934, various stages in constructing a water system and reconstructing buildings, as well as crafting interiors and furnishings of the mission period continued until late 1941. The finished mission was turned over over to the State of California the state to administer. The flickr set here has lots of exterior and interior detail, including chapel and living spaces.

Kennedy and Larkin memorialize the art of the WPA with wonderful illustrations, beautifully printed—in China.