New Deal Accomplishment: 600 million clothes, quilts, mattresses and other textiles

Above: "The Indian Weaver," an oil painting by Ann Louise Snider (1899-1973), created while she was in the WPA, between 1935 and 1943. Image from the General Services Administration and the Kern County Library (Bakersfield, California).

Above: A project assisted by the New Deal's Civil Works Administration (CWA), 1933-1934. 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: WPA workers making rugs and other textiles in Spokane, Washington, December 1935. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: Previously-unemployed women now working for the Cooperative Handicrafts, Inc., in Puerto Rico, ca. 1938, a cooperative assisted by the New Deal's Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA). Assistance to cooperatives was one of the main concerns of PRRA - see Geoff G. Burrows, The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration: New Deal Public Works, Modernization, and Colonial Reform (University of Florida Press, 2024), p. 11, listing the seven basic divisions of PRRA; p. 85, showing a photo of PRRA-assisted rug cooperative workers; and pp. 102-108, discussing agricultural cooperatives. Photo above from the PRRA report: Rehabilitation in Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR: Imprenta Venezuela, 1939.

Above: Standing room only, in this joyful CWA sewing room. A few years after this photo was taken, Eleanor Roosevelt visited some WPA sewing rooms and remarked: "What interests me most are the people carrying on these projects. I had opportunity to meet them clear across the continent and their enthusiasm and belief in their work is really fine to see. It is not the kind of spirit you see in people who are working because they received a certain amount of money at the end of each week. There is a fire in them, I think, through the feeling that they are really working to better conditions for their fellow beings" ("First Lady Sees WPA at Work: Sewing room spirit wins praise," Work: A Journal of Progress, September 1936, p. 2). 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: All across the country, the WPA employed large numbers of women (and a fair number of men too) to work in sewing rooms and other textile-producing facilities. The photo above was taken in Worcester, Massachusetts, ca. 1938. Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers produced 382,756,000 clothes for men, women, children, and infants. They also produced 117,794,000 other articles, including blankets and stuffed toys. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A WPA sewing room exhibit in California, between 1935 and 1943. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A close-up section of the WPA sewing room exhibit (see previous photo).

Above: Another close-up section of the WPA sewing exhibit.

Above: The cutting area at a WPA sewing room project in Los Angeles County, California, between 1935 and 1943. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph reads: "WPA project for maintenance and operation of Sewing Shop, 475 Tenth Avenue, New York City. Manhattan Sewing Project." These men are probably repairing and testing sewing machines from, or destined for, WPA sewing rooms. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: WPA workers in the stock room of a sewing room project in Washington, DC, April 14, 1938. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A sewing room project in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, operated by the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA), ca. 1940. These women are creating "garments, sheets, pillow cases and miscellaneous articles" for hospitals, homes for senior citizens, and other public welfare institutions. Between 1935 and 1943, NYA sewing room workers produced over 48 million items of clothing, bedding, and other textiles. Quote and photo from the National Archives.

Above: A woman designs dresses on a WPA sewing project in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ca. 1939. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: These women are modeling outfits made on the same Milwaukee WPA sewing room project (see previous photo). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: These children, attending a WPA nursery school in Kentucky, are showing off their new clothes, created by women at a WPA job training center. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph--taken in Charleston, West Virginia on July 6, 1938--reads: "Relief clients are shown as they receive clothes from Surplus Commodities. These clothes are made in WPA sewing rooms." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: Stuffed dolls and animals, made on a WPA sewing room project in Leesville, Louisiana, between 1935 and 1943. Children from disadvantaged families received millions of new or refurbished toys from WPA sewing rooms and other WPA projects, such as toy repair shops and toy lending centers. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph--taken in Charleston County, South Carolina, in June 1938--reads: "Church on Sunday, WPA sewing room during the week." This description is interesting because many New Dealers sought to infuse public policy with the Christian values of charity and empathy for the poor - a goal that was influenced heavily by the Social Gospel movement. FDR once said, "Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: WPA sewing room workers at their place of work, a community house built by none other than the WPA! This photo was taken in Haysi, Virginia, November 1938. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: WPA workers in Savannah, Georgia, making mattresses for low-income Georgians, April, 1936. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A project of the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Between 1934 and 1935, FERA workers created at least 47,494,670 clothes, mattresses, quilts, pillow cases, towels, tablecloths, and other textiles (see here and here). Photo from the Work Division's final report.

Above: A type of blanket made in a WPA sewing room in Topeka, Kansas, for relief clients, between 1935 and 1943. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: WPA sewing room workers making quilts in New Albany, Indiana, between 1935 and 1943. The New Deal made sure that plenty of quilts were made for low-income families as well as families affected by natural disasters, e.g., floods. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A CWA-funded project, 1933-1934. 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: Quilting was a big deal for the New Deal, and also for the 1930s more generally. If you want to learn more, and see plenty of historic photographs, check out Janneken Smucker's book (University of Nebraska Press, 2023).

Above: A CWA-assisted project, 1933-1934. Many New Deal projects involved recycling or making use of readily-available, if not always readily-apparent, materials. 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: Working with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board--an agency created by the New Deal to market Indian arts and crafts and also protect them from counterfeiting--Native Alaskans helped supply Admiral Byrd's 1939-1941 expedition to Antarctica, an expedition that FDR took great interest in and helped plan. The above excerpt comes from an article in the October 1939 edition of Indians at Work, a publication of the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs.

Above: Members of the 1939-1941 expedition to Antarctica standing in front of the famed "Snow Cruiser." They are likely wearing the cold weather clothes made for them by Native Alaskans (see previous image). Photo by the United States Antarctic Expedition, and provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Above: This is a page from the June 1939 graduation program for Eau Claire Senior High School, Wisconsin. At the bottom of the page, we see that the WPA created the graduation gowns. Image scanned from a private copy of the program.

Above: The description for this photograph--taken between 1935 and 1943--reads: "When the Michigan schools opened last fall, thousands of children particularly in the rural districts... had the opportunity to salute brand new American Flags made by 130 needy women workers on a WPA sewing project in Grand Rapids..." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: Making flags in Mitchell, South Dakota, between 1935 and 1943. Notice the "WPA" headbands and what appears to be a portrait or photo of FDR on the back wall. WPA sewing room workers continued their patriotic endeavors as America's involvement in World War II increased - refurbishing Army "clothing... shoes... tents, blankets, knapsacks, web belting, canteen covers and the like... thereby saving many millions of dollars" (Final Report on the WPA Program, p. 68). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A rare and historic WPA sewing machine and cabinet, Singer brand. Both the machine and cabinet match perfectly with historic WPA photos (also see photo of metal tag, below). Photo taken in 2023 and used with permission of the owner.

Above: A close-up of the WPA / Singer sewing machine. Photo taken in 2023 and used with permission of the owner.

Above: A metal tag on the sewing machine cabinet. Photo taken in 2023 and used with permission of the owner.

FDR's Sewing and Textile Army

If we add up the WPA, NYA, and FERA production numbers highlighted above (see statistical note below), we get about 606,044,670. For simplicity sake, let's just say that the New Deal created 600 million clothes, quilts, mattresses and other textiles - mostly for lower-income Americans who could not afford to buy these items in suitable quantities (or any quantities at all) in the regular marketplace.

(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.)