The New Deal Network.

The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (FERI) launched The New Deal Network (NDN) in October, 1996 as a research and teaching resource on the World Wide Web devoted to the public works and arts projects of the New Deal. NDN is now based at the Institute for Learning Technologies (ILT) at Columbia University.
E-mail: ndn@ilt.columbia.edu.

At the core of the NDN is a database (currently over 20,000 items) of photographs, political cartoons, and texts (speeches, letters, and other historic documents) from the New Deal period. Every few months the staff adds new "Features" which explore New Deal topics. Each feature contains a link to a curriculum kit in the "classroom" area of the site, which is especially designed for middle and high school teachers and students. NDN invites teachers and students to document WPA and CCC projects in their communities and to report their findings by producing their own Web pages linked to NDN. By employing the Internet in this manner, NDN will be creating a national learning community on the history of the New Deal period, which will have both educational and policy-making value.

The NDN staff consists of Thomas Thurston, an historian who serves as the Project Director, and Dick Parsons, a curriculum developer. John Sears, Executive Director of FERI, acts as Executive Producer.

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Greenbelt Museum
Greenbelt, Maryland, is a planned community that was designed and built by the Federal Government during the Great Depression of the 1930''s. Under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the project put many unemployed people to work building the original town while creating homes for families of modest income during a severe housing shortage. Greenbelt''s team of prominent planners and architects attempted to create a small utopia, using the principles of garden city planning. Greenbelt is one of three federal ""greentowns,"" the others are Greendale, WI, and Greenhills, OH. In 1997 Greenbelt became a National Historic landmark.

The Greenbelt Museum includes an original International Style house near the town's center that is restored and furnished with objects from the period of 1936-1946. The home also includes objects associated with the everyday life of a middle-class family during these years such as Fiesta ware and depression glass dishware, kitchen utensils, children's toys, clothes, and linens. The Museum is open Sundays, 1-5pm and by special request.

The Greenbelt Museum provides interpretive exhibitions in the Art Deco style Community Center at 15 Crescent Road. The Center's outer wall features dramatic friezes depicting the preamble to the Constitution created by New Deal sculptress Lenore Thomas Strauss. Exhibitions explore topics such as domestic arts and Greenbelt's architecture. The Community Center is open daily from 9am-6pm.

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The Library of Congress has started a new American Memory collection of WPA posters
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html .

The collection, which has an official title of "By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943," contains 907 of the approximately 2,000 WPA Federal Art Project Posters that are still in existence. (About 35,000 were around at one time, so it is clear that most of them have been lost.) You can search the collection by keyword, or browse by subject or artist. Each listing has a thumbnail picture of the graphic, with artist and poster information. Clicking on the thumbnail gives you a larger picture with varying options for even larger pictures (like 32MB TIF achievable) copies!

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FDR Library places 10,000 Documents Online
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/safe.html

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Franklin D. Roosevelt Library & Museum
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/

In an absolute boon to scholars and students, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library has recently announced the release of some 10,000 digitized documents, 6,000 of which are pages that had been locked in FDR's White House safe (Safe Files); the remainder come from the Vatican Files and German Diplomatic Files. The documents are offered as both digitized originals and text files.

The Safe Files may be browsed by box (of six) and topic. Each topic heading indicates number of items, document types, and topics covered. The Vatican Files may be keyword-searched (all returns display in full-text on a single page) or browsed by box and topic. The German files are browseable by box and topic. While some copies of the original versions were unavailable at the time of initial review, they were accessible on subsequent visits. Additional resources at the FDR Library site include a collection of thousands of copyright-free photos, a K-12 Learning Center, finding aids, and related links, among others. Without a doubt, this is one of the finest online presidential libraries. 

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The Internet Moving Images Archive

This resource contains high-quality digital video files representing ephemeral (advertising, educational, industrial, documentary, amateur and government) films relevant to the study of 20th-century American culture and society, media and media production, communication, technology, landscape, urban history, economics, political science, warfare, the New Deal, and many other subject areas. At present it contains approximately 360 out of a planned total of 1001 titles, all from Prelinger Archives. All are available for free downloading and reuse, with no restrictions other than that the films cannot be resold or licensed by anyone in their entirety or as stock footage. Our intention is that these titles should circulate freely as "open-source" content -- Rick Prelinger, Prelinger Archives footage@panix.com

Please note, these films may not be accessible to Internet users with slower connections.

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JAMES F. JUSTIN CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS MUSEUM

This site has a vast number of resources on the CCC, more than I had time to review. Includes a history, anecdotes exhibit, CCC biographies collection, a camp and project histories collection, a document exhibit, government records collection and links to other CCC related pages. Well worth the time if you are a CCC scholar or enthusiast.

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LYNDON B. JOHNSON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK

This is the site of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Johnson City and Stonewall, Texas. The park is dedicated to LBJ's life, particularly his early political career, when he was the Texas state director for the National Youth Administration and his early days as a Congressman during the New Deal. LBJ made enormous contributions to this part of Texas as a Congressman during the Depression, and this site provides information about his Depression era career as well as general, visitor information about the park. Thank you to Sherry Justus for the background information on LBJ.

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"Always Lend a Helping Hand"
Sevier County, Utah, Remembers the Great Depression In 1997, students at Richfield High School, in Richfield, Utah, interviewed members of their community about their experiences during the Great Depression. Part of the larger Sevier County Oral History Project, directed by Richfield High School English teacher Judy Busk, and funded by the Utah State Historical Society, these interviews are now available online on the New Deal Network. The twenty-four Sevier County residents interviewed for this project were children or young adults during the 1930s, but their memories of the Great Depression are still vivid. While they recount hard times, they also recall the pleasures of small town and rural life in central Utah. In addition to the twenty-four oral history transcripts, the website includes essays, photographs, and bibliographical and online resources. http://newdeal.feri.org/sevier/

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'WPA Sin Nombre: Hispana and Hispano Artists of the New Deal Era"
Hundreds of Hispana and Hispano artists created art for the various New Deal programs during the 1930's and 1940's under the presidency of Franklin Delanor Roosevelt. Sin Nombre (Without Name) presents the work of these artists, who have been almost completely undocumented during this important period.

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A New Deal for the Arts:
During the Great Depression of the 1930's and into the early years of World War II, the Federal Government sponsored a variety of art projects to provide work for unemployed artists. This remarkable effort is presented here with a unique selection of artworks, documents and photographs provided by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Within this collection, users may view paintings such as Fishermen's Village by Edmund Lewandowski, History of Southern Illinois by Paul Kelpe, Years of Dust by Ben Shahn, Mine Rescue by Fletcher Martin, and many more. Providing an exceptionally diverse collage of artworks from this particular era, this colorful exhibit is divided into 5 categories -- rediscovering America, celebrating "the People", work pays America, activist arts, useful arts.

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2002.

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Kresge Art Museum announces the launch of a redesigned website and
virtual walking tour of New Deal art and architecture in East Lansing and Lansing. The WPA tour can be viewed online at www.artmuseum.msu.edu
http://www.artmuseum.msu.edu/ under online exhibitions (direct link-
http://artmuseum.msu.edu/wpa/WPA/default.htm). A printable map of the WPA landmarks on the campus of Michigan State University is also available. The walking tour of the campus takes approximately one hour and fifteen minutes. Michigan State University's campus boasts six buildings, four murals and three sculptures sponsored by the WPA. Additional works are also in Lansing. As part of the 1930's New Deal social plan, various work programs were developed to provide relief to artists by sponsoring public murals and sculptures and also supplementing the construction of many buildings. Attached please find a press release with additional information.

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Introduction:

  The following New Deal related subjects could be used with the Internet search engines such as Yahoo and Google to find a wealth of information about the various New Deal projects/programs.  Once there you will find numerous links to New Deal materials and sites.  Listed below are subject matters you can reference:

Agricultural Adjustment Act
American Art
American Guide Series
Architecture
Art History
Benton Thomas Hart
Biddle, George
Bruce, Edward
CCC and C.C.C.
Civilian Conservation Corps
C.W.A.  and CWA 
Civil Works Administration
Cahill, Holger
Center for New Deal Studies
Coit Tower History
Conservation
Dust Bowl
Eleanor Roosevelt
F.A. P. and FAP
Federal Arts
Federal Art Project
F.D. R. and FDR
F.E.R.A.
Federal Emergency Relief Administration
F.W.A. and FWA
Fair Labor Standards Act
Farm Security Administration (FSA)
Federal Graphics Projects
Federal Housing Administration
Federal Project Number One
Federal Poster Project
Federal Maritime Commission
Federal Music Project and FWP
Federal Theatre Project and FTP
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and FERI
George Mason University - Federal Theatre Project
Government Sponsored Art
Great Depression
Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)          
Historic American Engineering Record (HAER)
Historic Records Survey
Index of American Design
Indian Reorganization Act
Indian New Deal
Music History 1930 - 1940
National Commission of Fine Arts
National Recovery Act (NRA)
New Deal
New Deal Art History
Oral History - Writers' Project
PWA and P.W.A.
PWAP and P.W.A.P.
Portfolio of Spanish Colonial Design
Preservation
Public Works of Art Program
Public Buildings Administration
Public Works Administration
Relief Programs
Roosevelt
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt Study Centers
Rural Electrification Administration (REA)
Shahn, Ben
Social Realism
Social Security Administration
Socialist Policy
State Guide Books
T.R.A.P. or TRAP or Treasury Relief Art Project
The Thirties
Theatre
Timberline Lodge
Treasury "Section" of Painting and Sculpture
Tugwell, Rex
Works Progress Administration
Works Projects Administration
WPA or W.P.A.
Writers' Guide Books
Writing

MORE NEW DEAL TOWNS:

Greenhills, Ohio
Greenbelt, MD
Greendale, WS
Arthurdale, WV
Roosevelt, NJ

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES: (not completed list)

National Archives
Presidential Libraries 
Library of Congress
Smithsonian Institution 
U.S. Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Interior
U.S. Postal Service
National Trust for Historic Preservation
U.S. Army Corp of Engineers
National Park Service
General Services Administration
National Museum of American Art

Fine Arts Program

National Gallery of Art
U.S. Forest Service
Rural Electric Association
National Buildings Museum

Specific websites relating to WPA Art and Classroom Curriculums.

Post Office Murals Special Interest Group (SIG)
http://communitydisc.westside66.org/html/colette/muralsSIG/default.html

Post Office Murals in Nebraska 
http://communitydisc.westside66.org/html/sigs/osters/listofmurals.html

Texas Post Office Murals 
http://communitydisc.westside66org/html/colette/muralsSIG/Texas.html  

Curriculum Tie-ins  
http://communitydisc.westside66org/html/sigs/posters/waystouse.html

Participating Teachers and Their Plans (click on a teacher's name to view the unit that he/she has planned utilizing the post office murals.
http://communitydisc.westside66.org/html/sigs/posters/teacherplans.html The New Deal 

The New Deal Art Project--Classroom Connection. Matthew R. Fidler, Rome City School District 112 East Thomas Street, Rome, NY 13440-Ph 315-334-7400 FAX 315-334-7409. Email mrfidler@syr.edu http://lsb.syr.edu/projects/newdeal/classroom.php

Arkansas Post Office Mural Project
http://www.uca-edu/divisions/academic/art/murals/homepage2.htm AHPP Education 

Program (Arkansas Historic Preservation Project)
http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/preservation/youth_education.asp

FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt: American Visionaries www.cr.nps.gov/museum

Lesson Plan & Activity

Museum of New Mexico Statewide Programs and Education - Mural Painting Throughout Time
http://www.museumeducation.org/curricula_activity_frescoes.html

EDSitement: Dust Bowl Days

Teach students about the Great Depression era through the ballads of Woody Guthrie, the novels of John Steinbeck, and Works Progress Administration (WPA) photographs http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?ID=300

Ellis Wilson: A High School Art Lesson

This model of an activity in which students create an original painting in response to the documentary about African American WPA artist "Ellis Wilson-So Much to Paint," by Kentucky Educational Television
http://www.ket.org/content/elliswilson/hscurriculum.htm

Historic Art and Architecture in Highland Park Schools

A comprehensive site describing lesson plans linked to art in the Highland Park, IL schools.
http://www.highlandpark.org/historic/art_hist_web

The Great Depression and the Arts

A Unit of Study for Grades 8-12
http://www.newdeal.feri.org/nchs/index.htm

NEW DEAL NETWORK:  http://newdeal.feri.org

www.gsa.gov/finearts

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Electronic edition of one of the WPA Guides,
this one on the Commonwealth of Virginia:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/VAGuide/frame.html

This is one element of a much larger project on the 1930s
from the American Studies Programs at The University of
Virginia. Lots of resources for students and teachers.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/front.html