New Deal Accomplishment: Millions of immunizations

Above: The Civil Works Administration (CWA) had many immunization projects, but the total number of immunizations administered is unclear. This newspaper clipping is from a longer article in The Cushing Daily Citizen (Cushing, Oklahoma), January 21, 1934, p. 1. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Across the country, the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) administered 1,355,304 immunizations against typhoid, diphtheria, smallpox, scarlet fever, and measles. The above newspaper clipping is part of a longer article in The Fargo Forum (Fargo, North Dakota), February 9, 1935, p. 3. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: WPA nurses preparing to give typhoid fever immunizations in Charleston, South Carolina, May 1938. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph, taken between 1935 and 1943, reads: "Jefferson County, Louisville, Kentucky. A doctor employed on this [WPA] project #2546 is shown aiding the State Board of Health in giving inoculations for typhoid fever and diphtheria." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A WPA poster, promoting vaccination against smallpox. Smallpox has killed hundreds of millions of people over the centuries. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Above: A WPA poster, urging immunization against diphtheria, a disease that killed hundreds of thousands of American children before widespread vaccination (and still causes death around the world today). Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Above: The National Youth Administration (NYA) immunized Americans too; but like the CWA (see image at top) it's not clear how many. This newspaper excerpt is from Hinton Daily News (Summers County, Hinton, West Virginia), June 1, 1939, p. 1. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Preventing Illness, Saving Lives

Between 1934 and 1935, the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) administered over 1.3 million immunizations. During the first three years of the WPA (fiscal years 1936-1938), at least 893,000 immunizations were given. During a surveyed two-week period in January 1940, WPA health workers administered 17,213 immunizations in clinics, homes, schools, and other settings, perhaps indicating that about 447,000 were administered during the entire year, and close to 1.5 million during fiscal years 1939-1941 (cumulatively), before the WPA program began to downsize.

From this data, plus endless newspaper accounts from all across the country, and the fact that CWA, NYA, and other New Deal programs administered many immunizations too, we can confidently say that the New Deal immunized millions of Americans and probably helped save tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives from diphtheria, smallpox, and other diseases.

Interestingly, the WPA also participated in a failed immunization effort. WPA health workers helped administer an experimental, non-mandatory nasal spray for polio. Unfortunately, it was soon realized that the polio virus was far more likely to enter the body through the mouth than the nose. Also, the nasal spray caused some people to lose their sense of smell - usually temporary, but in some cases it might have been permanent. Of course, it must be remembered that polio was (and still is) a crippling and deadly disease--with some children ending up in iron lungs (see photo below)--and so there was mass desperation for treatments and cures. Interestingly, there has been a renewed interest in nasal sprays for polio--see, e.g., here--so the medical science of the early-20th century was perhaps not completely wrong in its general approach to the disease.

Above: The WPA helped many children with polio, for example, by building comprehensive facilities with hydrotherapy, physical therapy, iron lungs, etc. The scene above is at the "Carrie Tingley Hospital for Crippled Children," built by the WPA in Hot Springs (now called "Truth of Consequences"), New Mexico, 1936-1937. One can only imagine how terrifying such scenes were to parents, and how desperate they were for any type of vaccine or preventive treatment. Photo from a December 1937 WPA progress report.

New Deal Accomplishment: Over 190,000 projects to build, improve, and maintain bridges

Above: Between 1933 and 1939, the Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funds for 388 bridges across America. Many of them were large and magnificent, like the North Bend Bridge in Oregon (shown above). This bridge is still in operation and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Be sure to see the fantastic 8-minute documentary, "In Landscape Harmony: New Deal Bridges for the Oregon Coast." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A PWA-funded drawbridge in California, connecting Oakland to Alameda. Notice the gear teeth, to the left, used to raise and lower the bridge (see next photo). This bridge was completed in 1935. Many bridges of yesteryear were visually engaging and inspirational (expansive metalwork, ornamentation, covered bridges, sculptures). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The Oakland-to-Alameda drawbridge appears to still exist today. This is a screenshot from the YouTube video, "Park Street Bridge," which shows the bridge in operation. Image used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Civil Works Administration (CWA) workers building a bridge over the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, in Washington, DC. In his book, Long-Range Public Investment, Robert Leighninger Jr. notes 7,000 CWA projects to build or improve bridges from 1933 to 1934. 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: Between 1933 and 1942, young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked on 57,424 projects to build or maintain bridges for vehicles, horses, and hikers. The bridges shown above are somewhere in the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida area. Photos from: Civilian Conservation Corps, Annual of District 'F', Fourth Corps Area (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Direct Advertising Company, 1937), used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Another CCC bridge project (unknown location). Photo from a March 1937 WPA report on  New Deal public works progress.

Above: A beautiful little bridge on the campus of the University of Colorado Boulder, built by the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), 1935. It appears that the bridge still exists today, and a graduate of the university wrote to the Coloradoan newspaper (Fort Collins), "Nothing can match the beauty of Varsity Bridge and Lake. I used to love to just go there and let it touch my soul. I was always amazed at the solitude in the middle of such a large campus.” Yep, that's what good architecture and the beauty of nature and landscape can do (something that modern America frequently forgets). Between 1934 and 1935, FERA workers built 6,957 bridges and improved 9,633 existing bridges. Photo from the FERA Work Division's final report.

Above: Another beautiful stone bridge, this one by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Sierra County, New Mexico, ca. 1938. Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers built 77,965 new bridges across America, and completed 46,046 other projects to reconstruct or improve existing bridges. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The South Side Bridge in Charleston, West Virginia, completed by WPA workers in 1936-1937 (see, e.g., "Dedication of Bridge is Held: WPA Officials, Other Cite City Progress at Ceremonies," The Charleston Daily Mail, October 27, 1936, p. 1). An information plaque on the bridge states: "Cooperation of the federal government, through the Works Progress Administration, made it possible for the people of the city of Charleston to receive this bridge, after all other apparent sources had failed... Its construction gave work to the otherwise unemployed men of this community." The bridge is still in use today. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The WPA-built Pauley Bridge in Pikesville, Kentucky. This is a screenshot from the excellent 7-minute documentary, "The Historic Pauley Bridge." Image used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: A WPA-built pedestrian bridge, with a great waterfront view! Photo from a June 30, 1940 WPA progress report.

Above: WPA workers building a bridge - part of a farm-to-market road project in Dickson County, Tennessee, March 1936. The old road was impassable during periods of heavy rain, and prevented farmers from getting their produce and goods to points of sale. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: Young women observe the progress of a WPA bridge project on Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, New York, May 1936. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: This comes from a longer newspaper article in The Sunday Times (New Brunswick, New Jersey), November 26, 1939, p. 5. Across the nation, workers in the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA) completed 9,973 projects to build or improve bridges. Image from newspaper.com, used here for educational and non-commercials purposes.

Above: Balboa Bridge, constructed by the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (PRERA), between 1934 and 1935. PRERA administered funds provided by the New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Later, from about 1935-1941, the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA, another New Deal program) continued this type of infrastructure work, for example, "In some areas, such as on the road leading to Barrio Real in Patillas--not far from where [Hurricane] San Felipe made landfall--the PRRA built reinforced concrete bridges to replace ones that had been previously destroyed" (Geoff G. Burrows, The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration: New Deal Public Works, Modernization, and Colonial Reform, University of Florida Press, 2024, p. 111). Photo from the National Archives.

 

New Deal Bridges

If we add up bridge projects carried out by the PWA, CCC, WPA, and NYA (see statistical note below), we see that the New Deal had over 190,000 projects to build, improve, and maintain bridges.

In its 2025 Infrastructure Report Card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation's 623,000+ bridges a "C" letter grade, and estimated that it will take $373 billion in funding "to bring the nation's bridges into a state of good repair over the next 10 years." However, considering our decades-long obsession with tax cuts and mega-yachts, instead of public funding, it seems unlikely that we will maintain our bridges to that degree. But we could, if we wanted to, by creating and implementing a modern New Deal.

(Statistical note: Due to a variety of factors--such as (a) single work projects that spanned over the course of multiple work-relief agencies, (b) more than one agency working on the same project at the same time, and (c) inadequate reporting--calculating the total New Deal work product for any category of projects can range from mildly challenging to extraordinarily difficult. I therefore use several methods--for example, leaving out the work product of one or more agencies--to keep the estimates modest, as opposed to overblown. My earliest blog posts go into these difficulties and methods in more detail.)  

New Deal Accomplishment: New and improved beaches, all across the country

Above: The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built the lake, bathhouse (since expanded), and beach at Herrington Manor State Park in western Maryland (see, e.g., "Herrington Manor Gains Popularity," Cumberland Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland), September 30, 1948, p. 12). Across the nation, the CCC created nearly 3,500 acres of new beaches for our leisure and recreation. Photo by Brent McKee, 2013.

Above: These are members of CCC Company 1421, ca 1937. While stationed in Miami, Florida, Company 1421 worked at Matheson Hammock Park (near Coral Gables, Florida) and their projects included "the building of roads, the creation of several lakes, the construction of a yacht basin and a shark proof swimming beach, as well as the building of many permanent park structures from native stone" (CCC, Annual of District F, Fourth Corps Area, Direct Advertising Company, 1937, p. 103). Ultimately, two beaches would be built by the CCC, as the Miami Herald explained: "A maze of curving drives winds among the mangrove swamps and two swimming beaches are under construction, one in each end of the park" ("South Miami CCC Camp Today Invites Public For Open House Celebration On Fifth Anniversary and Founding of Company," April 3, 1938). Matheson Hammock Park is still used today: "Its tranquil breeze-swept beach is a haven for families who enjoy its warm, safe waters and beautiful waterside views" ("Matheson Hammock Park," Miami-Dade County Government, accessed September 9, 2025).

Above: The WPA-built Aquatic Park in San Francisco. The building and overall park area "changed an unsightly area into a beautiful bathing beach" (quote in: San Francisco Improved: Report of Clyde E. Healy, Assistant City Engineer - City of San Francisco and Coordinator of W.P.A. Projects, October 10, 1935 to August 31, 1939. See the Living New Deal project page "Maritime National Historical Park (Aquatic Park) - San Francisco.) Photo from a June 30, 1940 WPA Progress Report.

Above: The description for this photograph, taken on April 22, 1936, reads: "O.P. 65-22-741, Ocean City, New Jersey. WPA men are shown putting into shape for the coming season boardwalks in many of the seaside resorts. Men are shown tearing up old boardwalk and redecking it with new lumber. Carpenters are shown laying new boardwalk." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The New Deal created and improved many beaches in the middle sections of the United States too. This photo collage is from The Escanaba Daily Press (Escanaba, Michigan), August 5, 1936, p. 12. Also see: "Use New Filtration Equipment At Beach: WPA Project Is Completed... Most Modern In Middle West," The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kansas), July 9, 1939, p. 11; "Island WPA Beach Project Improved," The Houston Post (Houston, Texas), August 26, 1937, p. 13; "WPA Improves Swimming Beaches With Sand...," The Minneapolis Journal (Minneapolis, Minnesota), May 21, 1936, p. 21; and "WPA Builds Sea Wall for Bathing Beach at E. Chicago," The Hammond Times (Hammond, Indiana), May 5, 1936, p. 29). Image above from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: This is a memorial stone at the Cudworth Cemetery on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, commemorating several men who died while working on a beach erosion control project in Dare and nearby counties, most of it contributing to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The men lived in a WPA transient camp, a type of camp that was set up to house Americans who were traveling across the country in search of jobs. These workers were either permanently homeless, or homeless in the sense that they had no place to stay while they were away from their home state. We do not know exactly how they died, but many of them were upwards in years and may have died of natural causes (i.e., not from worksite injuries). Photo by Brent McKee, 2013.

Above: WPA workers constructing a new beach at Jordan Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania, January 1936. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The WPA-constructed beach at Jordan Park (see previous photo) proved to be very popular with the local residents. This photo was taken by the Allentown Morning Call newspaper and appeared on page 1 of their July 9, 1937 edition. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: New Deal beach work was often done during winter months, in preparation for the swimming season. This clipping is part of a longer article in the Daily News (New York, New York), January 11, 1940, p. B13. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Fun in the Sun, Courtesy of the New Deal

An accurate estimate of New Deal beach work is hard, or perhaps even impossible to do. We know it was extensive, for example: the final report of FERA's Work Division reports 143 new beaches constructed and 104 beaches improved (p. 93); the final report of the CCC director notes 3,462 acres of beach improvement (p. 106); and there are numerous articles in newspaper archives describing WPA beach work. But there doesn't seem to be enough uniformity or completeness in the statistical reporting to calculate a total number. Perhaps the best we can say is: New Deal beach construction and improvement was nationwide and substantial.

New Deal Accomplishment: Over 1.5 million miles of roadwork

Above: America's roads--and especially its secondary roads--are in terrible condition, as the 2025 Infrastructure Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) notes (and as our daily drives will confirm!). Potholes, patches on top of patches, rough culvert backfill, deeply recessed manholes & grates, alligator cracking, and more await us all. Image from the Washington State Department of Transportation and the American Society of Civil Engineers; used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Estimates of roadwork completed by the New Deal's Civil Works Administration (CWA), 1933-1934, range from 200,000 miles to 500,000 miles. More CWA workers were employed on roadwork than any other type of project. The work consisted of "hundreds of bridges large and small, thousands of culverts, hundreds of retaining walls, numerous tunnels and underpasses, and extensive excavation operations." Quote and 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: This photo comes from the final report of the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), and notes the 244,000 miles of roadwork completed from 1934-1935.

Above: The New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA) built many of the highways that we ride on today, such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike (learn more about the turnpike's history with its interactive timeline). Between 1933 and 1939, the PWA financed at least 36,638 miles of new or improved roads and highways. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A completed section of the PWA-financed, 165-mile long Pennsylvania Turnpike, February 1941. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A new four-lane highway for Revere, Massachusetts, ca. 1937, constructed with PWA funds. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: Enrollees in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) working on Mandahl Road, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, ca. 1935. Across America, the Triple C's created 126,230 miles of new truck trails and roads, and maintained another 580,995 miles of road (see p. 105 of CCC director's final report). These roads facilitated quicker response time for wildfires, as well as improved visitor access to our state and national parks and forests. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A National Youth Administration (NYA) project to improve road access to a cemetery in Minersville, Utah, ca. 1939. Between 1935 and 1943, the NYA built or expanded at least 3,201 miles of "Highways, roads, streets, and alleys," and reconstructed or improved another 13,726 miles. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: In just its first fiscal year, the WPA's roadwork was extensive. And by the end of the program in 1943, WPA workers had constructed or improved 651,087 miles of road, largely in rural areas. Image from an October 1936 WPA progress report.

Above: WPA roadwork meant a lot to rural states, as this excerpt from a 1941 West Virginia State Road Commission report makes clear. Today, West Virginia's secondary roads are on a ridiculously long 30-year repavement schedule which often leaves them in horrible condition (see, "2020 Report Card for West Virginia's Infrastructure," American Society of Civil Engineers, pp. 33-36). West Virginia's roads could definitely use a new WPA.

Above: WPA workers constructing the Cotton-Amma farm-to-market road in Roane County, West Virginia, between 1935 and 1943. The WPA built farm-to-market roads all across the nation so that farmers could more consistently get their produce and goods to market. Before this WPA initiative, farmers frequently had to contend with muddy and impassable roads. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: More rural roads by the WPA. Photos from a WPA progress report, June 30, 1940. 

Above: A WPA work camp for the Wolf Creek Highway project in Oregon, ca. 1938. This large construction project was designed to improve access to Oregon's beaches and coastline (see, e.g., "Wolf Creek Road Being Built To High Standards," Oregon Journal (Portland, Oregon), September 11, 1938, section 4, p. 6). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The WPA at work on the Wolf Creek Highway. Photo by Ralph Gifford, Oregon State Highway Department, in the Oregon Journal (Portland, Oregon), June 19, 1938, section 4, p. 4. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Beautiful, smooth, and handcrafted (!) new pavement for Loch Raven Boulevard in Baltimore, Maryland, courtesy of the WPA, July 1936 (also see, "27 1/2 Miles City Streets Paved... Concrete Surfacing Of Loch Raven Boulevard One Of Most Ambitious Of Projects," The Baltimore Sun, October 11, 1936, p. 22). Photo from the University of Maryland College Park Archives.

Above: WPA roads improved access to military bases and defense industries, and thus played an important role in America's victory in World War II. Photo from a WPA progress report, June 30, 1941.

Above: "The Roads," an oil painting by Gerrit Hondius (1891-1970), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, between 1935 and 1939. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The New Deal Road Builders

There a few different ways we might calculate total New Deal roadwork, but if we evaluate all of the numbers above, and then leave out the CWA's extensive roadwork (see statistical note below), it is clear that the New Deal completed over 1.5 million miles of roadwork. That's enough roadwork to go around the Earth 60 times. Some of this roadwork was new, some of it consisted of improving existing roads, and all of it was beneficial to the country. New Deal roadwork employed millions, facilitated more comfortable and extensive travel, aided national defense, and was a vital part of the foundation that our post-World War II economy grew upon.

(Statistical note: Due to a variety of factors--such as (a) single work projects that spanned over the course of multiple work-relief agencies, (b) more than one agency working on the same project at the same time, and (c) inadequate reporting--calculating the total New Deal work product for any category of projects can range from mildly challenging to extraordinarily difficult. I therefore use several methods--for example, leaving out the work product of one or more agencies--to keep the estimates modest, as opposed to overblown. My earliest blog posts go into these difficulties and methods in more detail.)       

New Deal Accomplishment: Over 259 million quarts of food canned for those in need

Above: A Civil Works Administration (CWA)-supported canning project in Texas,  ca. 1934. Photo from 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: Through two-types of gardens--"quantity-production gardens" and "family subsistence gardens"--the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) promoted the production, preservation, and canning of food for families in need. This initiative reduced the strain on charity and federal funds, and also provided more nutritious food. The creation and/or maintenance of subsistence gardens was a requirement for many families on cash relief. Photo from: The Emergency Work Relief Program of the FERA, April 1, 1934 - July 1, 1935, p. 57 (1935).

Above: The cover of a subsistence garden brochure, from the Virginia Emergency Relief Administration, 1935 (each state had an office to administer funds from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration). Inside the brochure we read: "These instructions are prepared for your use. They are prepared to give you information which if used properly will help furnish you with fresh vegetables all the season and a surplus for storage and canning for winter use... Don't fail to call on your Garden Supervisor to help you with any and all of your garden problems." Image scanned from a personal copy.

Above: Page 4 of the subsistence garden brochure (see previous image). Image scanned from a personal copy.

Above: Women cooking corn and potatoes at a WPA canning project in Bay City, Texas, between 1935 and 1943. The Final Report on the WPA Program explained that "[Gardening and canning projects] had been operated by the CWA and FERA, chiefly to provide food for distribution to needy people in their homes. Under the WPA the work was broadened to include the production of food for use in feeding needy school children and needy persons in public institutions. This was finally termed the food preservation and production program and was integrated with school lunch programs in most States." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: Sealing cans at the WPA cannery in Bay City, Texas (see previous photo). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A WPA canning project in Omaha, Nebraska, August, 1938. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: An exterior view of the WPA canning project in Omaha, Nebraska (see previous photo). The location was "50th and Center Streets." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A WPA canning project in Brockton, Massachusetts, between 1935 and 1943. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: At this WPA canning factory in West Springfield, Massachusetts, we see three major steps in the canning process - cutting, filling, and cooking. Later in the article, it reads: "Designed as a relief project, the WPA canning plant in West Springfield serves a two-fold purpose. Not only does it provide employment for 120 workers, but it also supplies people on relief with the freshest and most substantial vegetables. Located in Riverdale Rd., the plant daily makes up from 2,000 to 2,800 cans of vegetables which are distributed to the WPA center in Worthington St. to hundreds of needy persons. Beets, carrots, beans, tomatoes and even apples..." Photo by The Springfield Union newspaper (Springfield, Massachusetts), and part of a longer article in its December 28, 1935 edition. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: According to an article on Patch, this cannery building in Kirkland, Washington was built by the WPA in 1935-1936 (also see, "Women workers standing in front of the Kirkland Cooperative Cannery, Kirkland, July 1939," Museum of History and Industry (Seattle, Washington), accessed August 31, 2025). The WPA built and/or operated canneries such as this so that people could can their own vegetables for free. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia and Wikipedia user "Happybluemo," and used here under the CCA-SA 4.0 license.

Above: In 1936, with loan assistance from the New Deal's Resettlement Administration, the Arapaho Cooperative Canning Association was formed in Wyoming. Equipment came from old FERA projects and the building was remodeled by the WPA. Photo by H.L. Denler, in the October 15, 1937 edition of Indians at Work (a publication of the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs), p. 21.

Above: From the November 1938 edition of Indians at Work (see previous photo).

Above: Many other American Indian canneries were set up with the assistance of New Deal funds, such as this one at the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. Indian-made jams and jellies, using a variety of wild berries, were very popular. Photo from Indians at Work, January 1940 edition.

Above: When the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (the main component of the "Indian New Deal") was extended to Alaska in 1936, it facilitated the building of a salmon cannery in Hydaburg, Alaska, 1939 (see Indians at Work, November 1939 edition). The cannery proved to be a major economic driver for the people living in the area, mainly Haida natives. Unfortunately, the cannery was destroyed by fire during a 1948 drought that left the town's water supply incapable of handling the emergency. Since then, there has been reconstruction, disputes with the federal government, another cannery fire in 1984, but also a recent and hopeful renewal of Hydaburg's fishing industry - "Alaska Sea Grant helps get new fish plant rolling," Sea Grant Alaska, June 26, 2017. Photo from Indians at Work, May-June 1945 edition. 

Above: A National Youth Administration (NYA) canning project at the Fleisher Vocational School in Philadelphia. Part of a longer article in The Afro-American (Baltimore, Maryland), September 7, 1940. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: "Cannery Row," an oil painting by Rockwell W. Carey (1882-1954), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1933-1934. Image from the Portland Art Museum.

Preserving Food

Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA canned 84,986,915 quarts of food (vegetables, fruit, and meat).

In 1934, the Work Division of the FERA canned 5,140,000 bushels of fruits and vegetables; and reports suggested that production in 1935 would be even higher. So, let's estimate total FERA canning of fruits and vegetables--i.e., 1934 and 1935--to be 10,000,000 bushels.

The amount of quarts that can be canned from a bushel seems to range from 5 to 25, depending on what's being canned. So, let's go with the low figure, 5, and estimate total FERA canning of fruits and vegetables to be 50,000,000 quarts. 

FERA canneries and FERA workers also canned 200,000,000 cans of meat, mostly in 1.25 pound cans. It appears that a quart of meat weighs about 2 pounds; so, doing a bit of math--250 million total pounds of meat, divided by 2--we would arrive at 125,000,000 quarts of canned meat. (FERA canned such a large quantity meat because of a bad drought in 1934 and the impending loss of a large amount of livestock.)

Adding our numbers up--84,986,915 quarts of WPA fruits, vegetables, and meats + 50,000,000 quarts of FERA fruits & vegetables + 125,000,000 quarts of FERA meat--we can confidently say that the New Deal canned over 259 million quarts of food.

New Deal projects preserved food in other ways too: "Although canning largely took precedence over other methods of food preservation, the processes of storing, freezing, drying, and brining were utilized effectively in many instances" (Final Report on the WPA Program, p. 68). Indeed, between 1935 and 1943, the WPA dry-preserved 11,448,079 pounds (or 5,724 tons) of food.

(Statistical note: Due to a variety of factors--such as (a) single work projects that spanned over the course of multiple work-relief agencies, (b) more than one agency working on the same project at the same time, and (c) inadequate reporting--calculating total New Deal work product can range from mildly challenging to extraordinarily difficult. I therefore use several methods--for example, leaving out the work product of one or more agencies--to keep the estimates modest, as opposed to overblown. My earliest blog posts go into these difficulties and methods in more detail.)