[On May 6th, 1935, Franklin Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration [WPA]. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of WPA histories, leading up to a weekend post on why we need a 21st century revival!]
On three
iconic and inspiring figures linked to the WPA (alongside the many many artists
who became associated with it, like John
Steinbeck and Zora
Neale Hurston!).
1)
Harry
Hopkins: I wrote a bit about Hopkins in yesterday’s post, referencing his
excellent quote about artists needing to eat too. But Roosevelt’s Commerce
Secretary was influential and instrumental in
the New Deal far beyond just its artistic and cultural programs, and one of
the main ways he did so was as a
principal architect of the Works Progress Administration. By that time Hopkins
had had a long
and varied career, all of which I’m sure played into his New Deal and WPA
efforts, but I would especially highlight his first professional jobs, as
a social worker, including his stint as executive secretary of the Board of
Child Welfare. The WPA made clear that federal social programs were crucial
forms of social work, and I have to believe a good bit of that emphasis came
from Hopkins.
2)
John
Gaw Meem: The WPA’s programs and jobs spanned many different aspects of
society and culture, but at its heart were architectural
projects, including countless building and transportation projects that
remain in use to this day. Those projects required tons of workers across a
wide variety of roles, among them the architects and other creatives who
imagined and designed these buildings, bridges, and more. One particularly
impressive example of a WPA-supported architect was John Gaw Meem,
the New Mexico architect who helped keep traditional Southwestern
architecture and art (influenced by Mexican, indigenous, and Anglo presences
alike) alive and thriving in the 20th century. It’s impossible to
know how many such architects and artists might not have been able to continue
their work without the WPA and the New Deal, but it’s clear that our society
and nation would be infinitely impoverished if we didn’t have the work they produced.
3)
Hallie
Flanagan: Yesterday’s post focused on the WPA’s artistic and cultural
programs, those comprised by the Federal Project Number One. Harry Hopkins was
instrumental in creating those programs overall, and not coincidentally one of
his college classmates and friends at Iowa’s Grinnell
College, Hallie Flanagan, became a central figure in these artistic programs,
and specifically the Federal
Theatre Project. Flanagan eventually became a successful target of the
conservative fears and attacks I also highlighted yesterday, but I don’t want
to give them further credence by dwelling on them at least here. Instead, I
want to note just how fully she and the FTR supported the work of American
drama, from the political and social realism of the great Clifford Odets
to the Modernist experimentation of young Orson Welles
to a central emphasis on African
American playwrights and productions (through the Negro Theatre Project).
Contra those conservatives, I can’t imagine a more essentially and inspiringly
American figure than Hallie Flanagan.
Last WPA
post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
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