News From Around the States

 

Alabama-
WPA artist, Conrad Albrizio (1894-1973) became the South’s leading creator of wall paintings, frescos, and mosaics. One of NNDPA corporate members, McKay Lodge conservation Laboratory in Oberlin, OH saved a major mosaic he did in 1959 for the Mobile County Courthouse just prior to the building being demolished. Conservator Robert Lodge reports that the theme of this glass mosaic “is the judgment of good from evil, right from wrong and, though originally intended for a courthouse for obvious reasons, it’s a theme relevant for contemplation in any environment.” Removal of this 7 foot tall, 34 foot wide mosaic made of thousands of tiny pieces of thin, brittle glass was described by Conservator Stefan Dedcek as “dirty, physically brutal, and requiring a very delicate touch in the use of pneumatic demolition as the primary tools for the job.” They were contracted to remove the mosaic glass pieces from the courthouse interior wall and remount it on a portable substrate so that it could be installed in any future location.

 

Alaska-
Palmer, Alaska—This resettlement community will be holding its annual gathering around the first of June. Last year they had their 70th anniversary celebration which included people from all over Alaska and the lower 48 states. A parade was followed by a showing of a DVD of Colonist interviews. About 400 Colonists and their descendents were present for both the banquet on Saturday night and picnic on Sunday afternoon. There were nine Colonist Parents still alive and living in the valley however three came from Minnesota and one from Kentucky.

In 1935 two hundred four families with 500 children from the upper Great Lakes states (Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and one Oklahoma family) came to the Territory of Alaska after FDR signed the 1935 New Deal Resettlement Plan. David Williams was the chief architect for building this community as he did for 83 other communities and today it is one of the few surviving community centers and is under review to become a National Historic Landmark.

Financing this community was carried out by the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation (ARRC). It was to dissolve itself after the Colonists and replacements had paid off their 30 year loans (cost was $3,500 including 40 acres of land) according to their contracts but after the loans were paid in full, the ARRC re-organized themselves and continue today to make farm loans.

This information provided by NNDPA member, Wayne Bouwens, a 1935 Colonist. He can be reached at P. O. Box 1274, Palmer, AK 99645-1274 and is involved with the Colony House Museum www.customcpu.com/ait/david/psociety/htm or call 907) 745-1935.

Ranger Doug has moved.  For those who are interested in acquiring the beautiful silkscreened early posters done to advertise select parks in the Nat. Park Service, then you are probably familiar with Ranger Doug, a primary source.  This is a dentist who has been serving up in Alaska but his other "fun" job is collecting and reprinting the Nat. Park Service  posters.  He also has printed them in postcard and notecard forms.  We recently heard that he had spent last year in Antartica.  Another adventure has been following up on the auction of a set of the posters that sold for prices ranging from $2200 to $7500 per poster which were out of his price range, he indicated. Let him know if you have original posters or want to buy new ones from him.  His new address is Dr. Doug Leen, Buoy 54 Kupreanof  Is., Wrangell Narrows, PO Box 341, Petersburg, AK 99833, (907) 518-0335, www.dougleen.com, mail@dougleen.com

 

California-
NNDPA Board member, Dr. Gray Bechin, from Berkeley is capturing more information about California's New Deal treasures than he, and most likely anyone else, ever knew existed. It is truly exciting what he and his volunteers have found as part of the New Deal Legacy Project activities. If you want to know more or share something you know, contact him at gbrechin@berkeley.edu or call him at (510) 267-9607. His website is www.graybrechin.com.

 

Conneticut-
Folks in West Hartford are trying to save their downtown public buildings from being transformed by developers. Contact NNDPA office for more information.

 

Idaho-
About Murals: Boise, ID finds legislators puzzling over what to do about the New Deal mural in the Ada County Courthouse which they are renovating to use as their new "home" come 2008.  Seems there are 28 murals in this building but two have depictions of the lynching of an American Indian and some others have have minor problems that create concern.  To remove, cover up or leave as part of the depiction of the area's history may have been decided in a recent vote which was scheduled to decide their fate.

 

Illinois-
A group in Centralia are trying to save the unique stain glass window in the Trout Gym, a New Deal structure, prior to the destruction of the buildling. Contact Jim Wham at (618) 532-5621. Hopefully they have accomplished this since we last heard from them.

 

Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago will be celebrating its 100th birthday in 2008 and have many celebration events planned.  During the New Deal era 25 years after the school's beginning, a large number of murals were created at this school and will be featured during our the 100th/75th celebrations.  If you don't want to wait to see the murals and other art items that have been gracing this school for years, contact Carol Schencker for a group tours at 773) 534-5400 x 23481.  One of our members, Flora Doody, helped to bring these mural treasures "to the light of the public."

 

Illinois University New Deal  buildings sought by M.E. Thompson:  This NNDPA member, Mary Emma Thompson, is attempting to identify university buildings in Illinois that were built with New Deal funds and hopefully encourage students to document this information.  Of course, her first love since retiring from teaching is to identify and write about the Illinois post offices. She has been most successful with this and now has published a children's book about "finding Lincoln in the Illinois Post Offices."  She can be reached at methomwi@rr1.net.

 

Louisiana-
Louisiana's Heritage Tourism Development in the Louisiana Office of Tourism has just completed an identification and interpretation of the Louisiana WPA Depression Era murals in public buildings located across the state. They have compiled an outstanding website presentation with color renditions of the murals and information about each one. Check http://www.louisianatravel.com and the home page for this presentation is THE WPA-FAP PROJECT: The Great Depression & Louisiana. Contact person that put it all together so beautifully is Sharon Calcote, Director, Louisiana Heritage Tourism Development. Her email is scalcote@crt.state.la.us

 

Maryland-
Gambrill State Park in Frederick, Maryland is on the lookout for the men who served in the CCC both in Maryland and in other areas of the country. They are planning a 75th CCC Celebration in 2008 and are now trying to find these men in order to document their stories and have them participate in a panel presentation. Call 301) 293-4170. This project began last summer but the park staff is still interested in finding more C’s.
Eric Creter, Tom Palmer, or Chris Lieberman are the contacts.

Green Town news: Greenbelt, MD, one of the three New Deal "Green towns" made the news recently related to the current situation where there is a merging of the Old with the New in their Washington Suburb. Interesting article in the New York Times by C. J. Hughes on Jan. 28, 2007 is worth reading.

 

Massachusetts-
President Roosevelt visited Union Station and Worcester, Massachusetts on multiple occasions. Learn More about the visits of the President to Union Station.

 

Sixty years ago, on January 11, 1944, in the midst of another American war, President Roosevelt spoke forcefully and eloquently about the greater meaning and higher purpose of American security in a post-war America. In 2004, the principles and ideas conveyed by FDR's words matter as much now as they did sixty years ago, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt American Heritage Center is proud to reprint a selection of FDR's vision, his "Economic Bill of Rights" for the security and economic liberty of the American people in war and peace.

 

The Franklin D.Roosevelt American heritage Center is dedicated to advancing the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the New Deal. It is located in the renovated Union Station and sponsors various workshops and conferences throughout the year. Their Director, Joseph Plaud, has just become a board member of the NNDPA.

 

A new feature on the FDR Heritage Center Museum’s homepage as well as the Museum specialty top page of the Franklin D. Roosevelt American Heritage Center and Museum is the “Featured Exhibit of the Month”. Each month’s special exhibit is previewed at http://www.fdrheritage.org or the Museum’s top page at http://www.fdrheritage.org/fdr_museum_preview.htm.

 

Please visit our FDR Museum links to learn more about the FDR American Heritage Center Museum.

 

Michigan-
Peggy Schodowski and Kristine Kidorf.

 

New Hampshire-
Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan of Florentine Films are looking for the African American CCC men who were at CCC Camp Ohanapecosli in Mount Ranier National Park. This film company is in the midst of producing a film on the history of the national parks, tentatively titled "American's Best Idea: Our National Parks." If you have any leads about these men, please contact Pam Tubridy Baucom, Florentine Films, P. O. Box 63, Walpole, New Hampshire 03608.

 

New York-
The Queens Borough Public Library-Astoria Branch in Queens, NY celebrated earlier this year the restoration of two of their New Deal murals. Grand Finale of an Opera and Circus were painted by Max Spivak in 1938. Originally they were two of a five panel group conceived for the Children's Reading Room. Damaged after years in the basement, these two have been restored but the other three are permanently lost. The murals can now be seen on the main floor of the library. The funds for the restoration project came from the Kellen Foundation and the Adopt-A-Mural program. Contact source: Phyllis S. Cohen, Director of the Adopt-A-Monument/Mural Program at the Municipal Art Society of New York.

Janet Hays is compiling a book on the WPA and is looking for individuals who worked on that project between 1935-40s.  She is particularly interested in finding folks who worked on the Historical Records Project, the Hot Lunch Program, and the Timberline Lodge, but if you worked on any WPA project, please write, call or email her at 200 Cabrini Blvd., Apt. 93, New York, NY 10033 (212) 927-2822 or email to jahnyc@vzavenue.net.  We at the NNDPA office are also doing a book on New Deal programs and would also to hear from anyone that was in the WPA Projects.  These folks are hard to find if they are still alive.

 

Ohio-
In Columbus the mural Music (1934) by Emerson Burkhart, not seen for the past sixty-six years after its "whitewash" in 1938, is once again available to the public. Following the restoration by McKay Lodge Conservation Laboratory in Oberlin, the company donated its delivery as well as the installation of its panels on the wall. In 1938 the Central High School principal reportedly ordered painters to cover the 13' x 70' mural displayed over the auditorium stage because, he said, "it was too sexy had too much oomph."

Finally sixty four years later, art students at the Fort Hayes High School in Columbus completed their years of work removing nearly 1,000 square feet of soluble calcimine paint from the surface in their spare time. They were guided through this process by conservator, Stefan Dedecek and school art teacher, Teresa Weidenbusch.

 

Pennsylvania-
New Deal Posters Source in Philadelphia: Ennis Carter of Design for Social Impact, hopes to have a 75th commemoration event in Philadelphia around her WPA Living Archive Project.  She can be reached at ennis@dfsi.org or 215) 922-7303. 

Portland, Oregon-
Affiliated with the Labor Arts Forum organization as "their non-profit umbrella, NNDPA board member, Sarah Munro, is finishing her compilation of the history of Timberline Lodge, a New Deal treasure and another member is completing her research on all the New Deal murals and art in the state. They hosted a reception for the NNDPA and friends in Portland during the last Nat. Trust for the Historic Preservation annual meeting in 2005. Both groups are developing their plans for their 75th commemoration activities.

 

South Dakota-
Just published the reprint of their original Federal Writers Project Guidebook. This edition includes a new introduction written by M. Lisle Reese, the State Director of the S.D. Writer's Project when the first book was published. Unfortunately, he died prior to the book coming out but was delighted to have the opportunity to have his memoirs of that project included in the new edition.

 

Tennessee-
The New Deal for Artists
Tennessee's New Deal Landscape : A Guidebook
Tennessee's New Deal Landscape, a Guidebook (2001), Dr. C. Van West. This book discusses various waterworks projects across the state of Tennessee. It is a good book in general for anyone interested in the New Deal in Tennessee as it identifies specific elements of the built-environment in the state that were created by New Deal agencies.

 

Virginia-
The Camp Roosevelt CCC Legacy Foundation has been formed by a group of people who want to bring attention and express gratitude for the rich piece of history provided for Virginia by the Civilian Conservation Corps. As part of the 70th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of the CCC this group:
got support from their senators to give recognition to National CCC Day, are attempting to get approval from their state legislature to have a CCC license plate, want to raise enough money to acquire one of the CCC Workers Statues had public displays about the CCC at the Shenandoah County Library.

For more information about this group, contact Joan Sharpe at sharpej@shentel.net.

TV Documentary About the Writers' Project:  David Taylor in Alexandria, VA is working on a documentary about the Writers' Project "Soul of a People: Voices form the Writers' Project") as seen through a handful of the people who were on it, some of whom were later famous (Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Studs Terkel, John Cheever) and others. He is partnering with the Am. Library Association, Library of Congress and the NEH. Plans indicate the project will have a national airing in 2008.  For more information check out www.american-voices.net.  He can also be reached at 703) 518-5342 or at 311 S. Lee St. or  dataylor@igc.org.

 

Washington-
Marjorie Barton in Methow, WA is compiling a book, Leaning on the Legacy, that will focus on the WPA in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Should any of our readers have information about the WPA activities in any of these states or people who worked in the WPA, please contact her at mibarton2@yahoo.com. Her website is www.okieinmuskogee.com and her phone number is (509) 923-2364.

Alki Elementary's historic mural in need of TLC
A West Seattle elementary school hopes to restore a rare cedar mural that
was created during the Great Depression. The carved panels depict the
arrival of Seattle's white pioneers...

 

Full story:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002137505_alki01m.html

 

Washington D.C.-
The 1939 Mural Competition in 48 States:  The Treasury Section of Fine Arts established in Oct. 1934 had its largest competition in 1939 and 3,000 entries were judged with the winning entries placed in one post office in each state. The winners of this competition were printed in Life Magazine on December 4, 1939, pp. 12 -13.  If one is interested, you can review that list, travel to those sites and view the murals today. Check with this office or with Dallan Wordekemper, NNDPA board member and USPS staff person in charge of caring for these murals and thousands more all over the nation.

Dallan and his staff are constantly challenged to keep up with the conservation needs of the post office murals since there is never enough money to go around to take care of all the needs.  A recent completion of one created by Arnold Blanch in 1937 called "Harvest Scene" can be seen in Fredonia, NY.

 

Out West-
Preserve Fire Towers. On May 12, 2006, there was an interview on Living on Earth with a plea to help save the fire towers taht are being lost. Many were created by the CCC. For specifics, contact them at comments@loe.org or call 1-800-218-9988.

 

News

A FEDERAL ART PROJECT CONSERVATION SUCCESS STORY

Committed community members from Marin County are thrilled that they have a "like new mural" again at their San Geronimo Valley Cultural Center. "The mural, 15 feet wide, 7 feet tall and 50 feet off the road was originally painted for the Lagunitas School and portrays the area along the way to Olema and Point Reyes," noted Sam Whiting in his November 16, 2003 article in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine. The school, now the cultural center, once again has a bright and vivid mural and folks will note that little has changed in reality since this landscape was painted some 70 years ago by French muralist, Maurice Del Mue. Last summer and after that article came out last November, Susan Lahr, Richard Lang and Trillium Press developed a fundraising venture that has brought in the $20,000 needed to conserve the mural and its a done deal--a New Deal conservation success story! Trillium Press made digitized fine art prints of what the mural would look like when restored and these were traded for a $250 donation. Fifty dollars went to the Lang's Trillium fund, a non-profit for art students, and the rest went into the restoration fund.

According to a February 2004 article about the muralist in the Marin Independent Journal, he painted two other murals for Tamalpais High School. One was destroyed and the other one forgotten. Now Lang and Lahr are working to raise the funds to restore the forgotten one. The are also searching for others known to have been done at other schools. Check www.tamhighfound.org/art_restoration.htm for updates and information.