Above: The description for this photograph, taken in June 1940, reads: "School lunch garden - This school lunch garden worked by WPA workers [is] raising three kinds of peas, beans, greens, tomatoes, and corn. The school lunch garden is maintained in connection with the WPA school lunch project in Cisco, Texas, in order to supplement school lunch food items with fresh vegetables." Photo from the National Archives.
Above: A school lunch garden in South Carolina. The WPA publication Inventory: An Appraisal of Results of the Works Progress Administration (1938) reported 30,661 gardens being operated (p. 92), and the final report on the WPA indicates that most of these were larger-type gardens for communities and school lunch programs (p. 68). Photo from the National Archives.
Above: The description for this photo, taken in May 1938, reads: "Augusta, Ga. - WPA garden project - Produce raised here is used for school lunches and surplus commodities." Photo from the National Archives.
Above: "For her training on a WPA project at the Public Volunteer Park Conservatory in Seattle, the worker in the picture [and] nine others will receive a certificate as a Gardener, with a specialty of Orchid culture. On this project, sponsored by the Parks Department, the women have raised 10,000 Orchids in addition to other rare plants." Photo with description from the National Archives.
Above: An aerial view of the Berkeley Rose Garden in California, from Google Maps. Newspaper articles from the time suggest that this project was submitted for approval during the waning days of the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), in June 1935, but that it was probably started (and certainly completed) by the WPA, between July 1935 and September 1937. The New Deal's Civil Works Administration (CWA) also carried out work in this area. When the park was dedicated there were "Fifty-eight varieties of roses, representing a total of 1,160 plants... now in second blooming as a result of modern pruning methods used by city experts" ("Berkeley Rose Garden Ready: Dedication to Take Place Sunday With Music and Speeches," Oakland Tribune, September 22, 1937). Image above used for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Above: "Iris Garden," an oil painting by Anne Fletcher (1876-1955), created while she was in the WPA, 1939. Image / photo by Brent McKee, 2023.
Above: A garden project, with labor provided by the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). FERA Administrator Harry Hopkins said of gardening projects: "When you get a man out of the house into the open, with spade and rake and hoe, you lift him out of a bad mental state into which enforced idleness inevitably plunges him. His improved mental attitude reacts favorably upon his health, and so does the increase in fruits and fresh vegetables in his diet." Quote and photo from the Work Division's final report.
Above: In order to lessen the need for public funds, Americans on relief, especially during the early years of the New Deal, were encouraged or even required to plant a "subsistence garden." This type of small garden could provide a person or family with nutritious food and be planted on the relief client's own property or on a small plot within a larger community garden. In 1934, there were over 1.8 million of these FERA subsistence gardens; and perhaps over 2 million in 1935. When the WPA replaced FERA, these small-type subsistence gardens largely gave way to larger consolidated and school lunch gardens (see second photo and caption of this blog post). Photo from the FERA Work Division's final report.
Above: This sunken garden, one of several created by the New Deal, at the city hall of Hammond, Indiana, was started by FERA and completed by WPA, 1936. Learn more about this once-magnificent garden at "Hammond City Hall Part III: The Sunken Rose Garden," City of Hammond, Indiana (accessed June 16, 2026). This postcard is credited "Ektachrome by Brock... Curteichcolor Art-Creation... Distributed by City Photo Service, Inc., Hammond, Indiana." It is scanned from a personal copy and used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Above: By all accounts, the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA) created a beautiful sunken garden in Nebraska City, Nebraska, but it's unclear if the garden still exists today. This newspaper excerpt is from: "Woman's Club Visits Gardens," The Nebraska Daily News-Press (Nebraska City, Nebraska), June 13, 1937. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Above: The description for this photo--taken in New York City on July 27, 1936--reads: "East side children, reared in the tenement district of New York were afforded their first glimpse of the green outdoors when the WPA traveling garden paid a visit at Chrystie St., July 27th. Here, Mrs. Cleora Dayton is identifying various animals and insects for the children." The display is titled "Enemies of the Garden," but obviously includes enemies of the enemies, such as dragonflies, which are great to have patrolling one's garden. This photo is credited to "Acme Newspapers," is scanned from a private collection, and is used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Above: "Japanese Gardens - Erected 1893 - World's Fair - Jackson Park - Restored and repaired by the WPA," Chicago, 1937. The garden still exists today and is now called "Osaka Garden." Photo with description from the National Archives.
Above: This image is from a larger historical marker at the Norfolk Botanical Garden in Virginia. Photo by Brent McKee, 2016.
Above: A statue of a WPA worker, at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, Virginia. It's the only statue of a WPA worker I've ever seen (and if there are others they are extremely rare) despite the fact that 8.5 million WPA workers carried out hundreds of thousands of public works that modernized America - public works that we are still using and enjoying today. Photo by Brent McKee, 2016.
Above: A WPA poster, highlighting several ways--including Victory Gardens--that Americans could serve domestically during World War II. Victory gardens were part of the nation's effort to boost food production and avoid shortages. They were created and managed by organizations, such as the WPA, civic groups, and private industry, and also by citizens and families for their own personal use, to relieve pressure on normal agricultural sources. By the end of fiscal year 1943 (the last year of the WPA), there were 20 million Victory Gardens across the United States (annual report for the Department of Agriculture, fiscal year 1943, p. 11). It's not clear how many Victory Gardens were created by the WPA (either from scratch or by expansion of existing WPA gardens) but they were significant contributions (see, e.g., "WPA Victory Gardens Produce Tons of Needed Vegetables," The Punxsutawney Spirit (Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania), September 19, 1942, p. 1; "328,000 Quart Size Cans Sought By WPA [to can crops from WPA-sponsored Victory Gardens]," The Alva Review-Courier (Alva, Oklahoma), April 17, 1942, p. 5; and "WPA To Grow Six Times as Many Gardens as in 1941," The Corpus Christi Times (Corpus Christi, Texas), March 23, 1942, p. 2). Image from the Library of Congress.
Above: These women are preserving vegetables that they grew in their Victory Gardens, using a cannery that was started by the WPA, Jeffersontown, Kentucky, June 1943. Photo by Howard Hollem, Farm Security Administration, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: "The Gardeners," an artwork by Raymond White Skolfield (1909-1996), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1938. Photo from the Ackland Art Museum and the General Services Administration.
Above: Vice President and former Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, at work in his Victory Garden in Washington, DC, 1942. Wallace tended his Victory Garden in the mornings before going to work. Photo by John Vachon, Farm Security Administration, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Gardens Galore
When we consider the 1.8 to 2 million FERA subsistence gardens, the 30,661 WPA gardens (a number that was calculated when the WPA was not even at the halfway point of its life and did not include the Victory Gardens it created), and the gardens created by other New Deal agencies, such as the CWA and the NYA, we can confidently estimate the total number of New Deal gardens to be about 2 million.
New Deal gardens were part of an overall effort to better feed the nation. Other examples include the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation, the Food Stamp Plan, WPA posters promoting good nutrition, WPA school lunches, and the "three squares" that millions of hungry (and often underweight) young men received in the CCC.
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