{"id":228393,"date":"2025-05-07T08:03:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T08:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-may-7-2025-the-works-progress-administration-the-arts\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T08:03:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T08:03:53","slug":"americanstudies-may-7-2025-the-works-progress-administration-the-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=228393","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: May 7, 2025: The Works Progress Administration: The Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[On May 6th<\/sup>,
\n1935<\/a>, Franklin Roosevelt established the Works
\nProgress Administration<\/a> [WPA]. So this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a
\nhandful of WPA histories, leading up to a weekend post on why we need a 21st<\/sup>
\ncentury revival!]<\/p>\n

On three
\nquotes that together help sum up the creation and arc of the WPA\u2019s vital artistic and cultural
\nprograms<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u201cHell, they\u2019ve got to eat, too\u201d: FDR\u2019s
\nSecretary of Commerce Harry
\nHopkins<\/a> was one of the most vocal and influential architects of both the
\nNew Deal<\/a> overall and the cultural programs comprised by Federal Project
\nNumber One specifically. And I really love Hopkins\u2019s blunt quote<\/a> about
\nwhy a New Deal organization like the WPA should fund artists and their work. As
\nthe second quote will reveal, that wasn\u2019t the only motivation behind creating Federal
\nProject Number One, but it\u2019s a really important emphasis nonetheless: that artists
\nare both workers and people like everyone else, and needed the same collective
\nsupport that all Americans did during the Depression. <\/span><\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u201cThe immediate concern of the ideal
\ncommonwealth\u201d: Again, there were also other, more philosophical layers to the creation
\nof Federal Project Number One, and they were nicely summed up in the program\u2019s
\nmission statement<\/a>, and particularly the second of its main two main ideas: \u201cthat
\nthe arts, no less than business, agriculture, and labor, are and should be the
\nimmediate concern of the ideal commonwealth.\u201d Of course I entirely agree, and
\nmy favorite word in that quote is \u201cimmediate\u201d: that the arts are in no way a
\nluxury or a higher-order concern, but a vital focus, never more so than in our
\ndarkest moments. <\/span><\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u201cA dangerous promotion of race mixing\u201d: Such
\nwas one
\nof the attacks<\/a> directed at the Federal Theatre Project by conservatives in
\nCongress, attacks that led not only to the defunding of that project and
\nFederal Project Number One in 1939, but in many ways the end of the New Deal
\noverall. On the one hand, those attacks and fears were as nonsensical as they
\nalways have been, will be, and are. But on the other hand, it\u2019s most definitely
\nthe case that artistic and cultural works do help us move toward a more perfect
\nunion, one that is genuinely inclusive and fully reflects our foundational and
\ndefining diversity. For the years that they existed and thrived, the WPA\u2019s arts
\nprograms embodied and amplified that crucial goal. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next WPA
\npost tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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