Above: According to the National Parks Conservation Association, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built this sign at the east entrance of Zion National Park, Utah. Across the nation, the Triple C's created 405,037 signs, markers, and monuments, and maintained another 25,775. Photo from the National Park Service.
Above: A weather-faded, CCC-created monument to its first director, Robert Fechner (1876-1939), at Coopers Rock State Forest, West Virginia. Photo by Brent McKee, 2012.
Above: Young men in the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA) on a street sign project. Across the nation, NYA workers installed 1,139,546 street signs and markers, many of them created in NYA shops (NYA final report, pp. 140, 154-155, and 178). Photo from: Works Progress Administration, Report on Progress of the Works Program, December 1937, p. 67.
Above: A newspaper excerpt from The St. Joseph News Press (St. Joseph, Missouri), November 11, 1939, p. 4. Later in the article, a police official is quoted, "It is one of the finest jobs I have seen anywhere. Understandable traffics signs are necessary if the public is to know what is required in obeying traffic regulations. Proper signs give the motorist the answers to his questions, and without them there is confusion, congestion and, as a natural result, more accidents." Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers installed 937,282 traffic signs. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Above: The cover to a 1937 publication of the State Road Commission of West Virginia, inventorying markers "erected by the state of West Virginia... in cooperation with the Works Progress Administration... and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration" (from the front matter of the book). By the end of the 1930s, West Virginia had 440 historic markers along its roadways. Across the nation, WPA workers created or installed 1,238 monuments and historic markers and reconstructed or improved another 147. Image scanned from a personal copy.
Above: There have been four editions of the West Virginia highway marker guide (1937, 1967, 2002, and the 2020 edition shown above). The number of markers installed along West Virginia roads has grown, from the 440 New Deal-era markers to over 1,200 today. Image scanned from a personal copy.
Above: Sign painters and artists in the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (PRERA), the island's relief agency that administered funds from the New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), ca. 1933-1935. These men were unemployed... until the New Deal decided to utilize their skills. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers made 13,857 airway markers, and improved another 3,772. At the same time, NYA workers placed 2,623 airport and airway markers. These markers were painted on roofs and gave pilots information on location, direction, and distance (see, e.g., "Show Me the Way to Go Home: Long before the Global Positioning System, pilots got from town to town by reading rooftops," Smithsonian Magazine, September 2006). Photo from: Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, Report on Progress of the WPA Program, June 30, 1940.
Above: This is a memorial to Nick Mamer, World War I veteran and aviation pioneer, Spokane, Washington. It was created by Harry Lytle, WPA engineer, and installed by WPA workers in 1939, a little over a year after Mamer died in a plane crash caused by the plane's structural failure. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: The Nick Mamer Memorial Clock still stands today, at left, at Felts Field (the old Spokane Airport), so that folks can learn about the man who helped open up the skies. Screen grab from Google Maps, July 1, 2026, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Above: A monument and memorial to several hundred people who died when a hurricane hit the Florida Keys in 1935. It was created by the WPA's Federal Art Project and installed by WPA workers in 1937. The memorial has a crypt that stores the remains of some of the victims. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: A World War I memorial building in Columbia, South Carolina, funded the New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA), ca. 1935. The New Deal built many memorial buildings, but the exact number is not known. Photo from the National Archives.
Above: A WPA-constructed war memorial at the Philos Cemetery in Westernport, Maryland, honoring "all those who took part in all wars to preserve the freedom and liberty for our country" (from the plaque on the front of the building). Photo by Brent McKee, 2011.
New Deal Information
Adding up just the CCC, WPA, and NYA numbers above, we see that the New Deal created or installed at least 2.5 million signs, markers, monuments, and memorials. The actual number is certainly quite a bit higher (consider, for example, the large but unknown number of signs installed on PWA-funded highways), but see the statistical note below.
One could also add the WPA's 2 million posters--since they were signs too--to bring the number up to 4.5 million.
These New Deal projects welcomed vacationers and tourists into parks; guided them on trails; improved traffic and air safety; paid respect to historical figures and events; and, overall, provided a lot more information to a lot more people.
(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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