New Deal Accomplishments

Above: One of the first New Deal playgrounds, constructed by the Civil Works Administration (CWA), 1933-1934. In his book Spending to Save (1936), Harry Hopkins wrote: "Thanks to CWA... the United States expanded its recreational resources to an unprecedented extent, adding some 200 swimming pools, over 3,700 playgrounds" (p. 122). Photo from: Henry G. Alsberg, America Fights the Depression: A Photographic Record of the Civil Works Administration, New York: Coward-McCann Publishers, 1934, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes . Above: "City Playground," a lithograph by Harold Anchel (1912-1980), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1938. Across the nation, WPA workers created 3,085 new playgrounds: 1,851 at schools and 1,234 at other locations--and improved another 9,688. Image above from the Baltimore Museum of Art . Above: The description for this photograph--taken in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, June 1938--reads, ...

Above: Home-visits by nurses do not seem to have been a large part of the Civil Works Administration (CWA) program, but there were still significant projects, such as this home-visit campaign in Wilmington, Delaware, to get children immunized against diphtheria, 1934. Diphtheria was once a major cause of death among children in the United States: "Until treatment became widely available in the 1920s, the public viewed this disease as a death sentence" ( Case Western Reserve University ).  Newspaper excerpt from the Wilmington Morning News, March 14, 1934. Image from newspapers.com , used here for educational and non-commercial purposes . Above: Public health nurses, funded by the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), made 3,530,000 home visits to Americans in need of healthcare assistance. The nurse above is assisting someone recovering from mastoiditis, between 1934 and 1935. Mastoiditis is an infection of the mastoid bone (behind the ear), ...

Above: The New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funding for the new and massive "Charity Hospital" in New Orleans, 1938. In total, PWA funded about 822 "hospitals and institutions for medical treatment" (Public Works Administration, America Builds: The Record of PWA , Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 291 ). Photo from the National Archives . Above: Most Americans have forgotten, or have never been taught in the first place, or in some cases don't seem to care, how New Deal hospitals and health workers brought their parents or grandparents into the world, treated their injuries and broken bones, diagnosed their illnesses, provided the necessary facilities to perform life-saving surgeries, etc. The description for the photograph above reads, "Jackson Memorial Hospital, constructed by PWA in Miami, Florida. The picture shows the nursery room of the hospital." Photo from the National Archives . Above: This photo a...

Above: The New Deal's Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) built this library for the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, ca. 1935-1937. It is in the quadrangle behind Roosevelt Tower (also built by PRRA ) and today appears to serve other functions (these National Register of Historic Places materials suggest it was more recently used as the Registrar's Office, "Building No. 9"). Photo from the Puerto Rico Architectural Heritage Archives and the Archive of Architecture and Construction of the University of Puerto Rico; used here for educational and non-commercial purposes . Above: Workers in the New Deal's Civil Works Administration (CWA) expand the Wicomico County Free Library in Salisbury, Maryland, 1934. Walter S. Sheppard, a resident of Wicomico County, "pointed out that until the CWA came into being, the only hope Salisbury had of getting a new library was for some rich man to provide the necessary funds and... 'for the pas...