Above: The description for this photograph, taken in 1933 or 1934, reads: "Getting Ready For The New Leisure: CWA built a number of stadiums throughout the country. These bleachers were built at Patterson Field, East Liverpool, Ohio." 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 the CWA program ended, the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) continued hiring the unemployed--in coordination with local communities--to build stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers. The Work Division had 562 projects to build such structures, and 434 other projects to improve existing facilities. Some of these projects were continuations of projects started by CWA. Photo and statistics from the Work Division's final report.
Above: Young men in the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA) building a baseball stadium in St. Marys, West Virginia, ca. 1940. Between 1935 and 1943, NYA workers carried out 6,425 projects to build, expand, reconstruct, or improve stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funding for stadiums too, though the total number does not seem to be readily available. This PWA-funded stadium, built in 1935-1936, provided El Paso "with its first enclosed athletic field... An unusual feature is the incorporation under the seats of a shop, rifle range, classrooms, and locker and shower rooms." Quote and 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, p. 231.
Above: WPA workers built 2,302 new stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers, such as the Buffalo Civic Stadium, shown above, 1938. They also carried out 926 other projects to expand, reconstruct, or improve existing structures. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: The WPA built many stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers for high schools. This is a new stadium for Township High School in Peru, Illinois, 1937. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: Dedication ceremonies for the new WPA-built Benson High School Stadium, Omaha, Nebraska, November 13, 1936. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: The description for this photograph--taken between 1935 and 1943--reads: "Grandstand constructed entirely of pipe salvaged from abandoned oil field locations near Sapulpa, Okla. The grandstand was constructed by a force of WPA workmen under sponsorship of the town of Sapulpa." Photo from the National Archives.
Above: The WPA built Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1938. It is still used today for college football and NASCAR events. Photo by James Wommach, Winston-Salem Journal Sentinel, courtesy of the National Archives.
Above: WPA workers constructing a stadium for City Park in New Orleans, ca. 1937. The stadium was eventually named Tad Gormley Stadium, and according to its Wikipedia page, the stadium has hosted a large number of sporting events, as well as concerts by "Alice Cooper, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Journey, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, Ramones, The Rolling Stones and ZZ Top among others." Photo from the National Archives.
Above: Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, New Jersey, constructed by WPA, ca. 1937. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: Another view of Roosevelt Stadium (see previous photo). Photo from a Historic American Buildings Survey, provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Above: A WPA-built grandstand at the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee, ca. 1938. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: WPA workers preparing the ground for their project to build a football stadium at Fort Hill High School, Cumberland, Maryland, December 1935. Photo from the University of Maryland College Park Archives.
Above: The Fort Hill High School football stadium in 2011. In most cases, stadium facilities--bleachers, sodded fields, lighting, etc.--constructed and installed by the WPA, have been modernized or replaced. But the WPA's carved-out landscapes remain. Photo by Brent McKee.
Above: WPA Administrator Harry Hopkins, at the dedication of the new Louisiana State University stadium (built by WPA workers), November 28, 1936. Hopkins warned the crowd about affluent Americans who sought to end WPA "because there are tax dollars at stake for the wealthy and the powerful." He then praised WPA workers, who persevered in their jobs even as they were ridiculed by certain segments of the American population: "The things they have actually accomplished all over America should be an inspiration to every reasonable person and an everlasting answer to all of these insults." (Quotes from: "LSU Stadium Is Dedicated By Hopkins," The Sunday Item-Tribune (New Orleans, Louisiana), November 29, 1936, pp. 1 and 20. Photo from the National Archives.
Places For Our Pastimes
Using just the FERA, NYA, and WPA numbers highlighted above (see statistical note below), we see that the New Deal had at least 10,649 projects to build or improve stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers - and this was just one part of the New Deal's overall initiative to vastly increase liesure and recreational opportunities for Americans.
(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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