WPA
- The Second New Deal of 1935 - $5 billion Works bill passed in April
- under Harry Hopkins also created RA, REA, NYA
- "WPA employees saw themselves as workers and citizens, not as welfare cases. They organized unions, demanded higher pay, and lobbied. . ."
- self-liquidating projects, local sponsor and materials, 1/4 cost for labor, security wage less than prevailing wage, decentralized bureaucracy
- Federal Project No. 1 announced in Sept. art, music, writing, theater, historical records survey, each with own director, direct DC supervision
- "Just as mass production typified American industry in the 1930s, mass culture characterized entertainment, journalism, and the arts during that era. . . . The cultural movement had a broad reach, combining a modernist, experimental sensibility in arts and letters with an appreciation of the critical role of workers and farmers in American society. Simultaneously nationalistic and regionally rooted, it celebrated as inherently democratic and creative the folk cultures of the Southwest, the Appalachian South, and small-town New England." Diego Rivera, Paul Cadmus, Orr Fisher
- create nation of culture consumers, art as experience, not high or low
- "Guardian of Water" and "Aztec" by Donal Hord
- Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. transcription, films, dioramas, OE radio section,
exhibits, traveling workshops, art centers and classes
- "Story of Richmond Hill" by Philip Evergood in Queens, Harlem mural by Eituro Ishigaki, "Back Home, April 1865" by Tom Lea in Pleasant Hill MO
- "The Post as a Connecting Thread" by Edward Laning in Richmond NC
- "Western Civilization" series by James Newell at Corcoran Gallery, 192 of 498 paintings were of labor and industry, started Dec. 8, 1933, as Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) for 4000 artists, then to Treasury in 1934
- Coit Tower on San Francisco Telegraph Hill by PWAP 1933-34, 31 frescos by 25 artists, but communists symbols removed, fear during 1934 longshoreman's strike
- Federal Theater Project of Hallie Flanagan 1935-39 produced 50,000 performances of 1000 different plays by 10,000 artists for 25 million
- Living Newspaper was a new technical form "AAA Plowed Under"
- "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis Dec. 1936 seen by 275,000 in four months at 30 cents admission, 21 simultaneous openings
- "The Cradle Will Rock" cancelled by WPA in 1937 but staged by Marc Blitzstein in defiance of the federal government and the unions.
- Cradle Will Rock 1999 film
quotes from Who Built America? Working People and the Nation's Economy, Politics, Culture and Society. New York: Worth Publishers, 2000.
Revised 3/27/03 by Schoenherr