New Deal Accomplishment: More than 102,000 projects to build or improve schools, colleges, and other educational buildings


Above: The Civil Works Administration had about 40,000 projects to build or improve schools (Harry Hopkins, Spending to Save, 1936, p. 121, and Bonnie Fox Schwartz, The Civil Works Administration, 1933-1934: The Business of Emergency Employment in the New Deal, 1984, p. 183). Improvements included painting, additions, repairs and, as shown above, grading and landscaping. The photo above was taken in Somerset County, Maryland, between 1933 and 1934. Photo from the University of Maryland College Park Archives.


Above: This high school, in Utuado, Puerto Rico, was repaired and expanded with funds from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), ca. 1934. Between 1934 and 1935, the Work Division of FERA built 1,530 new school buildings and had another 31,418 projects to improve existing school buildings. Photo from a report of FERA activities in Puerto Rico.


Above: Another school in Puerto Rico, this one built by the New Deal's Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), ca. 1940. "Escuela Elemental Eleanor Roosevelt" still serves as a school today (though it has been expanded into a two-story building) in the "Eleanor Roosevelt Development" (also a PRRA project) in San Juan. In his book, The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration: New Deal Public Works, Modernization, and Colonial Reform (University of Florida Press, 2024), Dr. Geoff Burrows notes 285 schools built by PRRA by March 1938 "in 189 towns or cities across all regions of the island, ranging from Aguas Buenas, Aguada, and Aibonito to Villalba, Yabucoa, and Yauco" (p. 108). Photo above by PRRA, from the PRRA & WPA book Puerto Rico: A Guide to the Island of Boriquen (The Puerto Rico Department of Education, 1940).


Above: Converse Hall, University of Vermont, partially renovated and remodeled by the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA), ca. 1939. Between 1935 and 1943, the NYA had 21,640 projects to build or improve educational buildings, for example, schools, libraries, and vocational facilities.


Above: The wonderfully-designed women's dormitories at the State Teachers College in Bozeman, Montana, built with funds from the New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA), ca. 1935. Between 1933 and 1939, the PWA financed 7,488 projects to build or improve secondary schools, colleges & universities, and other educational buildings (PWA, America Builds: The Record of PWA, 1939, pp. 288 & 290). Photo from the National Archives.


Above: This map comes from the PWA publication, America Builds: The Record of PWA (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939), and highlights the extent to which the New Deal transformed America's educational infrastructure. Further, as if the above map was not enough, one can  add in the tens of thousands of similar projects by CWA, FERA, WPA, NYA, and PRRA. To say that the New Deal upgraded America's education is not enough - the New Deal was an education revolution.


Above: Another beautifully-designed PWA building, the Administration Building at the University of New Mexico, 1940. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: Many of the New Deal-era school buildings were grand in size, architecture, or both, such as this PWA-financed high school in Delaware. They no doubt inspired students to be grand, not bland. Photo from: C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown, Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939).


Above: Lamar High School, Houston, Texas, built with PWA funds, 1936. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: A new dormitory and classroom building for the Illinois School for the Deaf, Jacksonville, Illinois. This was one of three such buildings constructed on the school's campus with PWA funds, 1936-1937. The school had been having serious housing issues and the three PWA buildings added facilities for up to 432 students ("State Plans to Add to Local Units; May Spend Two Million," The Daily Journal (Jacksonville, Illinois), July 17, 1935, p. 10; "State Wants Every Child In Safe Building Says Bowen at ISD Dedication," The Daily Journal (Jacksonville, Illinois), October 17, 1937, p. 12; Minnie Walt Cleary, "History of the Illinois School for the Deaf," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 35, No. 4 (December 1942), p. 387). Photo from the National Archives.


Above: Mount Pleasant High School, in Providence, Rhode Island, a castle-like structure funded by PWA, ca. 1935. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: The PWA also funded new schools on Indian reservations, such as this day school for Navajo children. Many day schools would be built during the New Deal, with the express intent to end the practice of sending Indian children to distant, alienating, and sometimes abusive boarding schools. Photo from: C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown, Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939).


Above: Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA carried out 40,471 projects to build or improve schools, colleges, libraries, and other educational buildings. The school shown above is in Circleville, West Virginia, and was built by the WPA in 1938. Photo by Brent McKee, 2014.


Above: A plaque on the Circleville school (see previous photo). Photo by Brent McKee, 2014. 


Above: A WPA-built school for African American children, in Montgomery County, Alabama, ca. 1938. This was part of a county-wide project to replace seven lesser-quality schools with a more modern facility. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: WPA workers building the Kennard School (now the Kennard African American Cultural Heritage Center) for African American high school students in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, 1936. Photo from the University of Maryland College Park Archives.


Above: The information card for the previous photo.


Above: The completed Kennard School, 1936. Note the WPA sign on the corner of the building, to the left of the entrance. Comparing this photo to the photo on the homepage of the Kennard African American Cultural Heritage Center, you can see that at some point another section was added to the school. Photo from the University of Maryland College Park Archives.


Above: A historic marker outside the Kennard School, explaining the origin of the school. I kept this photo large so you can save, expand, and read. The marker not only explains the important work of Lucretia Kennard, but also highlights how the WPA was able to bring a little more fairness to the inherently unequal "separate but equal" doctrine that ruled many parts of the United States from about 1896 to 1954 (of course, the separation of races, legally or socially, has unfortunately existed throughout all of American history--as well as the present--to one degree or another). Photo by Brent McKee, 2014.


Above: Another WPA-built African American school in Maryland. This photo was taken on the school's dedication day, December 26, 1936, in Pocomoke, Worcester County. Photo from the University of Maryland College Park Archives.

Better Schools = A Better Educated and More Enlightened Society

If we add up the above FERA, PWA, WPA, NYA, and PRRA statistics, but leave out the CWA's 40,000 projects (see statistical note below), we get more than 102,000 projects to build or improve schools, colleges, libraries, vocational schools, and other educational buildings (also see the blog post, "New Deal Accomplishment: Over 2,100 new libraries").

If you want to learn more about how the New Deal revolutionized America's education system--not just infrastructure but also programs that reached out to more people, programs that put more focus on democracy, more opportunities in the trades, and so on--see the Living New Deal's education summary here.

(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.)

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