‘Soul of a People’ commemorates 75th anniversary of New Deal

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4187

ST. PAUL - The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library has planned a month of lectures, readings, discussions and activities for its “Soul of a People” program, which honors the 75th anniversary of the New Deal and the Works Progress Administration Federal Writers’ Project.
“Soul of a People” programs are being presented around the country this fall with support from the American Library Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The New Deal was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression, a series of public programs – the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Works Progress Administration among them – designed to create jobs and jumpstart the economy.

While many New Deal jobs put Americans to work on the nation’s infrastructure and public works, some initiatives of the WPA, including the Federal Writers Project, targeted a different type of American worker, according to Peter Rachleff, a professor of labor history at Macalester College in St. Paul.

“The WPA recognized that blue collar workers were not the only people unemployed, and it created a series of programs for artists, actors, musicians, stagehands, designers and scholars,” Rachleff said. “Like all of the New Deal’s programs, these projects not only provided jobs and generated a stimulus to the economy but they also enriched public communities and, thereby, the lives of all citizens.”

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