Above: Workers measuring the columns at the Kentucky School for the Blind, Louisville, Kentucky, March 16, 1934. This project was part of the new Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), carried out by the New Deal's Civil Works Administration (CWA), in conjunction with the National Park Service. Unemployed architects and draftsmen were hired to do the job. Photo by Theodore Webb, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: Drawings and measurements of the columns, part of the finished survey of the School for the Blind (see previous photo). Image from the Library of Congress.
Above: These CWA workers are restoring the Dey Mansion to its original appearance, New Jersey, 1934. The Dey Mansion was one of several buildings that George Washington used as headquarters during the American Revolution. An extensive 2-page article about the highly-skilled CWA restoration work appeared in the February 22, 1934 edition of the Paterson Evening News (Paterson, New Jersey). After the mansion was restored, and after the CWA ended, it was added to HABS by the CWA's successor agency, the Work division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). The HABS materials can be found on the website of the Library of Congress, here. 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: After CWA and FERA ended, the WPA continued adding buildings to the HABS inventory, 1935-1941. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: Another church that the WPA added to HABS. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: A WPA-HABS drawing of Chatham Windmill, Chatham, Massachusetts. "Washington, D.C." is on this photo card because completed surveys were sent to the Library of Congress for preservation. You can actually see this drawing on the Library of Congress's website, here. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: After the New Deal, "the [HABS] program transitioned into summer work projects for students overseen by qualified architects and related professionals" (Virginia Murison, AIA, Consulting Preservation Architect, "About the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)," Historic Hawaii Foundation, June 18, 2025). The HABS work for the "Sofio Fernandez House," in Llano Quemado, New Mexico, was performed in part by two students from the University of New Mexico, 1963-1964. Image from the Library of Congress.
Above: One of several HABS drawings for Eagle Creek Overlook Shelter, Oregon. This shelter was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and overlooks the Columbia River and Bonneville Dam. The survey was performed by students from the University of Oregon, with Professor of Architecture Donald Peting supervising, 1994. Image from the Library of Congress.
Above: Part of the floor plan for "Stulting Place," the birthplace of Pearl Buck, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. This HABS survey was completed by Grigg, Wood, Browne & Williams Architects in 1972. Image from the Library of Congress.
Above: The New Deal not only created HABS, to help preserve Pearl Buck's birthplace--as well as tens of thousands of other structures--but also created West Virginia's historic roadside marker program. Through its legislation, HABS, roadside markers, physical restoration work, record-finding & inventorying, Index of American Design, archaeology & museum projects, publications on state & local histories (the Federal Writers' Project), and more, the New Deal became a historic preservation juggernaut. Photos by Brent McKee, 2015.
Above: Though less-focused (but not entirely unfocused) on the precise and technical aspects of architecture, such as measurements, and more focused on history and place, the Living New Deal, like HABS, preserves the memory of buildings should they be lost - by mapping, historical research, and photography, either by our team members, national associates, or other interested individuals. Seen above is the former WPA-built gym in Manteo, North Carolina. This interesting and steadfast structure, monolithic in appearance and with utterly gorgeous carpentry work in the ceiling area, was demolished in 2013, not long after this photo was taken. For more information and photos (including the carpentry work), see the Living New Deal webpage, "Manteo School Gym (Demolished) - Manteo NC." Photo by a Manteo resident, 2013.
Above: No doubt inspired by the success of HABS, the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey (HAMMS) was carried out by the WPA, and sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, 1936-1937. "This project is designed to give work to unemployed naval architects, designers, and draftsmen" ("Two Polar Ship Pictures Given To U.S. Museum: Smithsonian Gets Exact Drawing of Base Ships of Peary and Amundsen," Journal-Every Evening (Wilmington, Delaware), April 15, 1937, p. 10). Above, we see work being performed on the LaForrest L. Simmons schooner, Baltimore, Maryland, for HAMMS. This photo is dated February 1939, perhaps indicating that the ship had already been added to HAMMS or that supplemental information was being collected. Photo from the National Archives.
34,000+ Buildings Surveyed
By 1941, the New Deal--through its various work-relief programs--had inventoried 7,000 structures for the HABS project. By 2025, that figure was over 34,000. Further, HABS inspired similar projects, such as the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and the Historical American Landscapes Survey (HALS).
During the initial years of HABS, it was the formerly-unemployed--working in CWA, FERA, and WPA that did the leg work, the grunt work, and the architectural drawings, measurements, and photographs. It was the formerly-unemployed, who had been ridiculed and belittled (as always seems to happen during business-cycle downturns) who developed one of America's greatest historic preservation programs. This fact is often glossed-over or even entirely forgotten today. It shouldn't be.
No comments:
Post a Comment