New Deal Accomplishment: 25,000 projects to build or improve tennis courts

Above: WPA-built tennis courts, at the Davis Avenue Community Center, Mobile, Alabama, 1937. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: Tennis courts at Arcadia Recreation Center, Los Angeles, California, ca. 1936. These courts were built with WPA labor. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: WPA workmen, constructing tennis courts at a school in Gilbert, Arizona, between 1935 and 1943. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: WPA-built tennis courts at Moultrie Park, Charleston, South Carolina, 1938. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A close-up section of the previous photo.

Above: WPA workers constructing tennis courts at Pangborn Park, Hagerstown, Maryland, 1937. The tennis courts were one of many projects at the park. Photo from the University of Maryland College Park Archives.

Above: The tennis court area at Pangborn Park, 2011. Compare the stone steps you see in this photo to the steps you see in the previous photo. Photo by Brent McKee.

Above: The New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA) also built tennis courts, usually part of larger park development projects. These PWA-funded courts are in Beverly Hills, California, between 1933 and 1941. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph reads, "Recreational activities--tennis is one of the sports which occupy our leisure time. National Youth Administration, Illinois. Black women stand with tennis rackets on a tennis court." The New Deal not only built tennis courts, but also conducted classes to teach tennis. This photo--taken in 1936--appears to be such a class, with the lady on the left perhaps being an NYA Recreation Leader. Photo from the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.

Above: Part of a WPA poster, promoting milk for better nutrition and health. One of the under-studied areas of the New Deal is how it advanced overall well-being through the promotion of physical exercise, good eating habits, cleanliness, social interaction, and regular healthcare check-ups. Image from the Library of Congress.

A New Deal for Tennis

Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers built 10,070 new tennis courts, and carried out 3,086 other projects to improve existing courts. The NYA, during that same time frame, built or expanded 3,907 tennis courts, and had projects to improve 5,167 existing courts. 

Before WPA and NYA, the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) constructed 1,910 tennis courts and improved 1,187 existing courts (some of these projects were likely completed by WPA).

Other New Deal agencies worked on tennis courts too, such as the Civil Works Administration (CWA), PWA (see three images above), and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC, see tennis courts here), but the totals are not known and, with respect to PWA and CCC, probably do not approach the volume we see with the other agencies.

So, using the statistics from WPA, NYA, and FERA--and taking into account the significant but unknown quantity of tennis court work of other agencies--we can confidently say that the New Deal carried out about 25,000 projects to build or improve tennis courts.