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American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work by Nick Taylor
dee9401's review
3.0
I was very excited to pick up a book on the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It was one of the most important parts of FDR’s New Deal and it has had a long legacy with the infrastructure it created and the careers it helped launch. The timing of reading this book is also good in that I thought the US should have resurrected the WPA during the Great Recession that started at the end of the second Bush Administration. The government could have helped provide jobs and rebuild our roadways, bridges, schools, libraries and so forth. Private industry has never focused on these issues, filling their pockets rather than uplifting their fellow citizens.
Author Nick Taylor covers some of the amazing things that the WPA did. He tallies up the numbers in his epilogue and it blew me away. The WPA built 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000 bridges, and 125,000 buildings, including what became the Camp David Presidential Retreat in Maryland. It built or updated 800 airports and paved 700 miles of runways. Almost 900 million hot school lunches were provided to students and it operated 1,500 nursery schools. The Music portion of the WPA performed 225,000 concerts to over 150 million people. The theater project and its partners performed plays, puppet shows, vaudeville acts and circuses to 30 million people. On a smaller scale, books and magazines were delivered via cars, trucks and even pack animals to urban and rural people in order to rebuild their spirit and not just provide for their physical needs. In Kentucky in 1936, 33,000 books and magazines were delivered via these mobile libraries to 57,000 families. This program was expanded throughout the South and then to many parts across the country.
The arts were an important component to the WPA. For the first time, some artists were able to work on their art without having to have another job to support themselves. Muralists were prolific, covering public buildings and school walls with what would be held up as indicative of “New Deal art.” The WPA also funded art classes for school children and the general public. Theater, especially in urban areas, was strongly supported. So was music, although the director of the Music project focused mostly on European classical music, eschewing American folk, jazz, gospel and even some American classical composers. Even given that, the music part of the WPA was the largest Arts project employer.
Amazingly, the author shows in example after example that the rhetoric of Republicans and the conservative media and populace hasn’t changed at all since the 1920s. The same “government is bad” theme is echoed by Republican lawmakers, the 1930s-era Chicago Tribune and its ilk, and many business lobbying groups that are still in existence today, such as the National Association of Manufacturers. These groups said that people should just get a job (there were none with 25% unemployment) and take care of themselves (without any money) and each other with charitable organizations (that were stretched beyond their small coffers). Federal and state Republicans fought benefits for their constituents, including WPA jobs and projects, on the basis of ideology rather than necessity. Their constituents suffered, including privation and real starvation, to sate the officials’ hatreds. Compare this to today and health care system the Obama Administration helped create. Even the religious conservatives acted the same then as they do today. Fr. Coughlin blamed droughts on failing to be godly enough and that Democrats and the New Deal were simply doing the devil’s work. No ideas, just ideology and hate.
A perfect example of business’s speaking out of both sides of their mouth was an incident involving a Vineland, New Jersey glassworks factory (p. 276). The WPA resurrected jobs and the factory for these specialized glassblowers. Over time, their glassware vases and other creations became sought after, to the consternation of Corning Glass and their Steuben Art Glass subsidiary. Corning forced the government to end the funding for this program. They argued that if there were beautiful vases in public buildings, they ought to be from Corning, not from a WPA-funded factory. To me, that’s not a reason at all. Businesses claim they shouldn’t have to compete against a government-funded entity. They claim this is anti-capitalist and anti-free market. But, capitalism calls for competition and consumers normally buy the best products. So, instead of making their product better, Corning Glass forced the WPA-funded organization to close, sending those skilled glassblowers right back onto the welfare rolls.
While I liked the book and the information it gave me, I did have a big problem with its approach. It felt scattershot. I read a review of this book before I started and it really stuck with me. The review called it a book report on the WPA. As I read through each short chapter (often only a few pages long), I felt like someone had done a big Google search of “WPA” and then used those hits and Wikipedia to craft each section. Granted, there are interesting and valuable nuggets of originality when the author focuses on specific people who worked on a WPA project. But these character sketches are too brief, and sometimes too obvious, to illustrate the point. There was no momentum that these stories built, more just a smattering of color here and there.
The author also bought into the Red Scare rhetoric on one level. He goes to great lengths to show that the WPA was unfairly tarred as overrun with communists, socialists and other leftists. He makes a strong case that these were simply attacks by those opposed to the New Deal and FDR in general and the WPA in particular. However, while showing there wasn’t a communist takeover, he believes that there really were evil, mean communists out there trying to take over everything in some concerted and orchestrated manner. A lot of that was simply part of the Red Scare and that those who rallied for better wages, safer working conditions and access to the plenty that the rich had were not communists but just people asserting their rights as American citizens.
The House UnAmerican Activities Committee in Congress, known as the Dies Committee for its chairman, frequently targeted the WPA. They helped institute loyalty oaths for WPA workers, and eventually full-blown affidavits that seemed to curtail or eliminate freedoms of speech, thought and assembly. WPA Artists and muralists who were labelled “red” had their works destroyed. These committees and their rightwing supporters saw no irony in the suppression of the artist freedom. They only allowed testimony from those who supported the committees views, even when there was no evidence, or worse, contradictory evidence available. McCarthyism didn’t start in the 50s, it started in the late teens and continues on up to the present.
In conclusion, I would have liked a book that flowed better, and that was more focused. The WPA was an important institution and I wonder if I hadn’t known about it before I picked up this book, would Nick Taylor’s argument have been enough to make me like it? Further, I wish he’d spent more time on the WPA’s legacy. As it is, he devotes eight pages in an epilogue. Given all that, there’s, there’s a great thought he highlights from one of the people on the WPA Writers Project. This writer said it’s only welfare or “make-work” until you yourself need it Then it’s a job just like any other one (p. 301). That’s a great statement on the WPA and the importance role government can and should play for its citizens.
Author Nick Taylor covers some of the amazing things that the WPA did. He tallies up the numbers in his epilogue and it blew me away. The WPA built 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000 bridges, and 125,000 buildings, including what became the Camp David Presidential Retreat in Maryland. It built or updated 800 airports and paved 700 miles of runways. Almost 900 million hot school lunches were provided to students and it operated 1,500 nursery schools. The Music portion of the WPA performed 225,000 concerts to over 150 million people. The theater project and its partners performed plays, puppet shows, vaudeville acts and circuses to 30 million people. On a smaller scale, books and magazines were delivered via cars, trucks and even pack animals to urban and rural people in order to rebuild their spirit and not just provide for their physical needs. In Kentucky in 1936, 33,000 books and magazines were delivered via these mobile libraries to 57,000 families. This program was expanded throughout the South and then to many parts across the country.
The arts were an important component to the WPA. For the first time, some artists were able to work on their art without having to have another job to support themselves. Muralists were prolific, covering public buildings and school walls with what would be held up as indicative of “New Deal art.” The WPA also funded art classes for school children and the general public. Theater, especially in urban areas, was strongly supported. So was music, although the director of the Music project focused mostly on European classical music, eschewing American folk, jazz, gospel and even some American classical composers. Even given that, the music part of the WPA was the largest Arts project employer.
Amazingly, the author shows in example after example that the rhetoric of Republicans and the conservative media and populace hasn’t changed at all since the 1920s. The same “government is bad” theme is echoed by Republican lawmakers, the 1930s-era Chicago Tribune and its ilk, and many business lobbying groups that are still in existence today, such as the National Association of Manufacturers. These groups said that people should just get a job (there were none with 25% unemployment) and take care of themselves (without any money) and each other with charitable organizations (that were stretched beyond their small coffers). Federal and state Republicans fought benefits for their constituents, including WPA jobs and projects, on the basis of ideology rather than necessity. Their constituents suffered, including privation and real starvation, to sate the officials’ hatreds. Compare this to today and health care system the Obama Administration helped create. Even the religious conservatives acted the same then as they do today. Fr. Coughlin blamed droughts on failing to be godly enough and that Democrats and the New Deal were simply doing the devil’s work. No ideas, just ideology and hate.
A perfect example of business’s speaking out of both sides of their mouth was an incident involving a Vineland, New Jersey glassworks factory (p. 276). The WPA resurrected jobs and the factory for these specialized glassblowers. Over time, their glassware vases and other creations became sought after, to the consternation of Corning Glass and their Steuben Art Glass subsidiary. Corning forced the government to end the funding for this program. They argued that if there were beautiful vases in public buildings, they ought to be from Corning, not from a WPA-funded factory. To me, that’s not a reason at all. Businesses claim they shouldn’t have to compete against a government-funded entity. They claim this is anti-capitalist and anti-free market. But, capitalism calls for competition and consumers normally buy the best products. So, instead of making their product better, Corning Glass forced the WPA-funded organization to close, sending those skilled glassblowers right back onto the welfare rolls.
While I liked the book and the information it gave me, I did have a big problem with its approach. It felt scattershot. I read a review of this book before I started and it really stuck with me. The review called it a book report on the WPA. As I read through each short chapter (often only a few pages long), I felt like someone had done a big Google search of “WPA” and then used those hits and Wikipedia to craft each section. Granted, there are interesting and valuable nuggets of originality when the author focuses on specific people who worked on a WPA project. But these character sketches are too brief, and sometimes too obvious, to illustrate the point. There was no momentum that these stories built, more just a smattering of color here and there.
The author also bought into the Red Scare rhetoric on one level. He goes to great lengths to show that the WPA was unfairly tarred as overrun with communists, socialists and other leftists. He makes a strong case that these were simply attacks by those opposed to the New Deal and FDR in general and the WPA in particular. However, while showing there wasn’t a communist takeover, he believes that there really were evil, mean communists out there trying to take over everything in some concerted and orchestrated manner. A lot of that was simply part of the Red Scare and that those who rallied for better wages, safer working conditions and access to the plenty that the rich had were not communists but just people asserting their rights as American citizens.
The House UnAmerican Activities Committee in Congress, known as the Dies Committee for its chairman, frequently targeted the WPA. They helped institute loyalty oaths for WPA workers, and eventually full-blown affidavits that seemed to curtail or eliminate freedoms of speech, thought and assembly. WPA Artists and muralists who were labelled “red” had their works destroyed. These committees and their rightwing supporters saw no irony in the suppression of the artist freedom. They only allowed testimony from those who supported the committees views, even when there was no evidence, or worse, contradictory evidence available. McCarthyism didn’t start in the 50s, it started in the late teens and continues on up to the present.
In conclusion, I would have liked a book that flowed better, and that was more focused. The WPA was an important institution and I wonder if I hadn’t known about it before I picked up this book, would Nick Taylor’s argument have been enough to make me like it? Further, I wish he’d spent more time on the WPA’s legacy. As it is, he devotes eight pages in an epilogue. Given all that, there’s, there’s a great thought he highlights from one of the people on the WPA Writers Project. This writer said it’s only welfare or “make-work” until you yourself need it Then it’s a job just like any other one (p. 301). That’s a great statement on the WPA and the importance role government can and should play for its citizens.
lazygal's review against another edition
4.0
This extremely readable accounting of the WPA feels prescient. Yes, I know that jobs are a lagging indicator of recovery, but reading how Hoover kept insisting that we were in a recovery while the country clearly wasn't sounds similar to what we're hearing now. Not being an economist I'm not making any predictions, and we're clearly not in the same place now that we were in 1933, but still...
When FDR started to tackle the recovery, setting in place any number of government programs, it was simple necessity. What's not clear is whether he intended the scope to be as broad as it ended up being, or if Henry Hopkins' (leader of first the CWA and then the WPA) ambition was the reason that the program expanded the way it did. I knew that the WPA reached into almost every walk of life - from packhorse "bookmobiles" in Appalachia to road building to the arts - but I didn't know that New York's Laguardia Airport was a WPA project (ditto the Bay Bridge).
While we may not be in the same crisis we were in 70 years ago, reinstating some of these programs and allowing the recovery to "trickle up" is worth considering.
When FDR started to tackle the recovery, setting in place any number of government programs, it was simple necessity. What's not clear is whether he intended the scope to be as broad as it ended up being, or if Henry Hopkins' (leader of first the CWA and then the WPA) ambition was the reason that the program expanded the way it did. I knew that the WPA reached into almost every walk of life - from packhorse "bookmobiles" in Appalachia to road building to the arts - but I didn't know that New York's Laguardia Airport was a WPA project (ditto the Bay Bridge).
While we may not be in the same crisis we were in 70 years ago, reinstating some of these programs and allowing the recovery to "trickle up" is worth considering.
maddyb001's review against another edition
4.0
This book was super detailed. It was a little terrifying how many similarities there were to today.
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