New Deal Accomplishment: 56,000 projects to build or improve athletic fields and courts

Above: The description for this photograph--taken in Virginia, 1938--reads: "Students at Haysi High School shown using athletic field constructed for them by WPA. Stone retaining wall was also constructed by the WPA." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: "The new St. Alban's High School Athletic Field [Vermont] constructed by the WPA. A football game between local high school teams is in progress." Photo and description from the National Archives.

Above: "Carlisle Army Post, Carlisle, Pa. Athletic field and parade grounds were improved by WPA. Photo shows soldiers playing baseball on newly improved athletic field." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: As one might expect, stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers were often built in conjunction with athletic fields. See the blog post, "New Deal Accomplishment: 10,649 projects to build or improve stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers." Here, we see WPA workers constructing an "Athletic field and grand stand... for Braceville [Ohio]... the first and only one in the township," between 1935 and 1943. Photo and description from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph--taken in Manchester, New Hampshire, October 1937--reads: "Livingstone Park Athletic Field. A complete WPA job." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: "Grading track - view showing NYA boys grading track at Elmhurst High School. Athletic field," Allen County, Indiana, between 1935 and 1943. Photo and description from the National Archives.

Above: "Horseshoes," a lithograph by Hyman J. Warsager (1909-1974), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, between 1935 and 1939. Image from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: "Handball," another lithograph by Hyman J. Warsager created while he was in the WPA, between 1935 and 1939. Image from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: WPA-built horseshoe and handball courts, McKinley Playground, Buffalo, New York, December 1936. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The WPA helped put together horseshoe leagues in several states. This article comes from the Evening Times (Vineland, New Jersey), July 31, 1936, p. 8. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: There were also WPA handball tournaments in several states. This newspaper excerpt comes from The Scranton Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania), August 16, 1937. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: A game of horseshoes "at the annual field day of the FSA [the New Deal's Farm Security Administration] farmworkers community, Yuma, Arizona, 1942." Photo by Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration, courtesy of the Library of Congress. Description from the Library of Congress.

Above: A handball game in the New Deal planned community of Greenbelt, Maryland, 1942. There were two courts behind the community swimming pool. Photo by Marjory Collins, Farm Security Administration, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Above: A croquet court built by the WPA for the residents of Quanah, Texas, between 1935 and 1943. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: Women play tennis on an almost-completed WPA-built tennis court in Omaha, Nebraska, October 1936. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The New Deal built all sorts of other athletic and recreation courts, for example, roque courts [a cross between croquet and billiards], shuffleboard courts, basketball courts, volleyball courts, badminton courts, and paddle-tennis courts. This newspaper excerpt is from: "Rush Work On All FERA Projects In Wichita's Parks: Officials Hope to Have Improvements Completed by September Fifth; Use WPA Cash Then," The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kansas), August 19, 1935, p. 5. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Places to Exercise, Socialize, and Play Our Favorite Games

We already know that the New Deal had about 25,000 projects to build or improve tennis courts (see the blog post: "New Deal Accomplishment: 25,000 projects to build or improve tennis courts"). Now, let's add some more statistics:

FERA: Athletic fields and courts, not including tennis courts: 2,222 new constructions and 2,556 projects to improve existing fields and courts (FERA Work Division's final report, pp. 88-89 and 97-98).  

WPA: Athletic fields, handball courts, horsehoe courts: 7,104 new construction and 2,767 projects to improve such facilities (WPA's final report, p. 131).

NYA: Athletic fields, athletic courts (other than tennis), and archery and gun ranges: 16,340 projects to construct, reconstruct, expand, or otherwise improve (NYA final report, p. 140).

Other New Deal agencies built fields and courts too, especially CWA, but to keep the totals conservative (see statistical note below) we'll leave those out.  So, if we add the 25,000 tennis court projects to the numbers noted above we get, essentially, 56,000 projects to build or improve athletic fields and courts.

If we adjusted for population growth, between the 1930s and today, we would see about 150,000 federally-assisted projects to build or improve athletic fields and courts between now and 2036. 

We could add in New Deal-built stadiums, golf courses, swimming pools, playgrounds, skating rinks, ski jumps, hiking trails, etc. (which are covered in other blog posts) to arrive at at even more staggering number of facilities added to or improved in the nation's athletic and recreation inventory (which, in many places, was quite anemic before the New Deal arrived). We could also throw in the recreation programs (e.g., lessons, leagues, tournaments, and supervised play for children)--established in thousands of communities across the nation--to further illustrate the New Deal's revolutionary achievement in helping Americans exercise, socialize, and play their favorite sports and games.

Does the federal government, and the various state and local governments that sponsored New Deal projects between 1933 and 1943, have the same commitment to Americans today?

(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.)