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.)