New Deal Accomplishment: 1,383 new hospitals and treatment facilities

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 and caption comes from the newspaper article, "Lo, the American Indian Baby Gets a New Deal," The Fresno Bee (Fresno, California), November 11, 1934. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: A hospital built by the New Deal's Civil Works Administration (CWA) in Arizona, 1933-1934. It's unclear how many hospitals the CWA built and improved, but its successor agency (which often completed CWA projects)--the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration--built 80 hospitals and sanitariums and improved another 1,103 (Work Division's final report, p. 34). 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: The New Deal built a multitude of hospitals and health clinics in rural areas, and also in what are now considered "red states." This beautifully-designed WPA hospital was built in Varnville, South Carolina, in rural Hampton County. Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers built 226 new hospitals and improved another 2,324 (Final Report on the WPA, p. 131). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The WPA built many hospitals and health clinics for African Americans living segregated areas, such as this medical facility in Birmingham, Alabama, 1938 (there are interesting photos and information about this now-abandoned facility here). Contrary to what many modern critics seem to think, New Deal administrators could not end segregation, because the states had a pre-existing constitutional right to segregate if they wanted to. But the New Deal did make sure that facilities for African Americans were more modern, more numerous, and had greater capacity. (And FDR and the New Deal set the stage for the end of segregation by creating a fertile ground for the Civil Rights Movement and also by reshaping the Supreme Court with justices who had a greater sense of decency and fairness than many of their predecessors). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph, taken in Milton, West Virginia, 1938, reads, "Morris Memorial Hospital for Crippled Children. Children are shown being given therapeutic treatment for infantile paralysis. The pool and hospital [were] constructed by WPA." The New Deal built health facilities for the disabled all across the nation. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph reads, "This is a group of Puerto Rican mothers and children who have received treatments under the health center projects of the [New Deal's] Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration." In the publication Rehabilitation in Puerto Rico, we learn that "The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration... established sixty-four rural dispensaries throughout fifty-one municipalities on the Island. These dispensaries operated as regional clinics, each unit consisting of three dispensaries staffed by a physician, nurse, social worker and clerk." The publication also lists 24 urban dispensaries; improvements to a hospital for those suffering from leprosy; additions to a nurses' home; and an expansion of the School of Tropical Medicine at the University of Puerto Rico. For more information about the New Deal's health assistance to Puerto Ricans, see: Geoff G. Burrows, The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration: New Deal Public Works, Modernization, and Colonial Reform, Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2024, especially pages 92-95. Photo above is credited: "Ref. Dept., 10-28-1937, N.E.A.," and is used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: The New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA) built 167 new hospitals, infirmaries, out-patient medical buildings, and "charitable, medical, and mental buildings," and improved another 672 (Final Report of the National Youth Administration, 1944, p. 139). It also provided manpower assistance to many hundreds of hospitals. The description for the photo above reads, "NYA (National Youth [Administration]) girl feeds lunch to little girl who is a patient at the Cairns General Hospital located at the FSA (Farm Security Administration) farm workers' community at Eleven Mile Corner, Arizona." Photo by Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration, 1942, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Above: New Deal agencies, FDR, and the New Deal Congress also built or improved many military hospitals and health facilities, the most famous being the National Naval Medical Center, later named "Walter Reed." The initial complex, including the tower, was built from 1939-1942. According to the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, FDR chose the site of the hospital and also contributed to its design (see "The Bethesda Chronicles, Part 1: Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Medical Center," February 19, 2024, accessed June 29, 2025). The photo above was taken by the U.S. Army and is provided courtesy of Wikipedia.

Thousands of Hospital and Treatment Facility Projects

The information above shows that the New Deal built at least 1,383 new hospitals and treatment facilities, and had over 4,000 other projects to improve such buildings (repairs, re-painting, additions, etc.)

If we were to embark on such an endeavor today, adjusted for America's increased population, we would build--as a matter of public works and the common good--about 3,617 new hospitals and treatment facilities over the next ten years, and engage in over 10,000 other projects to improve existing buildings.

That seems mind-boggling (especially considering the epidemic of rural hospital closings in modern America). And that's because the New Deal was mind-boggling. Few living Americans have experienced anything like it. That volume of public works, and that type of action-oriented public policy, and that type of focus on the general welfare clause of the U.S. Constitution, is completely alien to us today.