Pre-New Deal Work Relief in Onondaga County, New York, 1931-1933
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
EMERGENCY EMPLOYMENT, PUBLIC ENJOYMENT: PRE-NEW DEAL WORK RELIEF IN ONONDAGA COUNTY, NEW YORK, 1931-1933 A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Grant S. Johnson August 2014 © Grant S. Johnson 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the impact of the Onondaga County Emergency Work Bureau (OCEWB) on Onondaga County from 1931 to 1933. The OCEWB was created as part of the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA), a pre-New Deal work relief initiative by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The work begins with an examination of the history of work relief in New York State before the Great Depression, followed by a discussion of the formation of TERA, which allowed for the creation of the Onondaga County Emergency Work Bureau. The projects, personnel, challenges, and ultimate dissolution of the OCEWB are discussed with an emphasis on local political conflicts that stymied potential successful projects. Two case studies, the Onondaga Lake Parkway and Village of Jordan Erie Canal Park, are undertaken to illustrate the impact of the OCEWB on different parts of the county from the 1930s to the present day. iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Grant Johnson was born in Dallas, Texas on August 31, 1979. Late that year, he moved with his family to Downers Grove, Illinois, and then to Manlius, New York in 1990. In 1997 he entered Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. While at Syracuse, Grant dual-majored in Anthropology and Women’s Studies. He toured the country as a musician for a few years following college, and moved to Cypress, California in 2004. After two years in the sun, he returned to Manlius, New York in 2006, and obtained an internship with the City of Syracuse Department of Community Development in 2007. With the experience gained as an intern and an acute interest in preserving the history of the “salt city,” Grant was admitted into the Historic Preservation Planning program at Cornell University in 2008. In the summer of 2009, he worked as a preservation intern for the City of Ogdensburg, New York, creating the first Historic Preservation Report in the history of the city. In May 2010, he graduated from Cornell University, receiving the John Reps Award for superior academic excellence at graduation. A six-month internship with the National Park Service Midwest Regional Office drew Grant to Omaha, Nebraska. After returning to Syracuse in late 2010, he continued to work on various projects for the NPS after the completion of his internship. Grant currently resides in Syracuse, New York where he works as a historic preservation consultant, and will be awarded his Masters of the Arts in Historic Preservation Planning in the fall of 2014. iv This work is dedicated to Cornell HPP: then, now, and forever. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work would not have been possible without the unflagging support of friends, family, and classmates throughout my two years at Cornell, and beyond. First and foremost, the HPP and CRP classes of 2008, 2009 and 2010 will forever remain the most interesting, inspiring, and unforgettable group of people I have ever met. Thank you all for one of the most amazing and enjoyable times of my life to date. The greatest thanks is due to Tom Duda, Nathaniel Guest, Bryan McCracken, Stephanie Smith, Nurit Shir, Anne Turcotte, Emma Waterloo, and Katelyn Wright for the support, laughter, tears, camaraderie, joy, frustration, learning experiences, and love shown from the beginning to end of our time together. I owe you eight more than I can put into words. Special thanks is also due to Michael Tomlan, Jeffrey Chusid, Mary Woods, Dan Krall, and all the inspiring instructors with whom I was privileged to take classes, share long car rides, engage in discussions both meaningful and frivolous, and most importantly, be encouraged to believe in myself enough to improve my life through their guidance. Finally, I am grateful to 102 W. Sibley Hall for providing a round-the-clock LAIR for studying, sleeping, eating, hanging out, and scheming the HPP takeover of the world. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iii Dedication iv Acknowledgments v Table of Contents vi List of Illustrations vii List of Abbreviations viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Work Relief Initiatives Before TERA 15 Chapter 2: The Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA) 33 Chapter 3: The Onondaga County Emergency Work Bureau, 1931-1933 61 Chapter 4: The End of the Onondaga County Emergency Work Bureau 104 Chapter 5: Onondaga Lake Park and Parkway & Jordan Erie Canal Park 119 Conclusion 145 Appendix A: Biographical sketch of Crandall Melvin, Sr. 162 Appendix B: Biographical sketch of Laurie D. Cox 166 Appendix C: Inventory Form for Evaluating TERA Structures 170 Bibliography 173 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I.1 Map of Onondaga Lake Park, 2014 6 I.2 Interpretive panels, Griffin Visitor’s Center, 2014 6 3.1 Map showing Onondaga County Emergency Work Bureau projects 62 3.2 Undated postcard showing Erie Canal in Village of Jordan 64 3.3 December 1954 photograph showing Erie Canal Park in Jordan 64 3.4 Birdseye view of Proposed Parkway Around Onondaga Lake, 1928 67 3.5 Map of roads leading to Onondaga Lake, 1928 69 4.1 Before and after view of Onondaga Lake Parkway, 1933 116 4.2 Before and after view of Onondaga Lake Parkway, 1933 117 5.1 Village of Jordan Erie Canal Park, June 2013 121 5.2 Views of original Sainte Marie de Ganentaa, 1933 124 5.3 View of the Salt Museum upon its completion in 1933 129 5.4 View of the Jesuit Well upon its completion in 1933 129 5.5 Jesuit Well, October 2013 133 5.6 Gale Salt Well, October 2013 133 5.7 1930s view of Village of Jordan Erie Canal Park 142 5.8 1990 view of Village of Jordan Erie Canal Park 142 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AICP Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor CCC Civilian Conservation Corps CWA Civil Works Administration DOE Determination of Eligibility EWB Emergency Work Bureau FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt FERA Federal Emergency Relief Administration FOHOL Friends of Historic Onondaga Lake NRHP National Register of Historic Places OCEWB Onondaga County Emergency Work Bureau OCPRPB Onondaga County Park and Regional Planning Board PLNYS Preservation League of New York State PWA Public Works Administration SHPO State Historic Preservation Office SUNY-ESF State University of New York College of Environmental Science & Forestry TERA Temporary Emergency Relief Administration WPA Works Progress Administration 1 INTRODUCTION After recovering from a severe economic depression following World War I, the United States experienced a surge of optimism and increasing affluence, leading many economists to popularize the idea that the country was on the threshold of a lasting era of prosperity of almost limitless scope. While rising stock prices and speculation attracted many novice investors to this promised path to wealth and success, studies of industrial unemployment in the 1920s indicated a growing, dire situation of joblessness created by accelerated production due to labor-saving devices. This led Alfred E. Smith, then-Governor of New York State, to pronounce a “serious condition of unemployment” affecting New York City and the state towards the end of the decade. A report by the state Industrial Commissioner to determine if the public works program of the state could do anything to remedy this situation concluded that “if industrial conditions grow worse, growing unemployment, with its attendants of want and illness, will become an inevitable result.”1 While such ominous pronouncements did not motivate the state legislature to take immediate action, the events of late October 1929 provided an unexpected shock to the state and nation in showing just how necessary state-assisted unemployment relief was going to become. The Wall Street stock market crash of “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929 was a catalyst for the United States’ plunge into the Great Depression, a period of profound economic chaos that wreaked worldwide havoc. The ensuing poverty, unemployment and subsequent years of turmoil and despair have been heavily documented and examined through the lenses of 1 Albert Deutsch and David M. Schneider, The History of Public Welfare in New York State, 1867-1940 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1941), 293. 2 economics, sociology, history, labor and numerous other fields whose foci intersect with the widespread effects of the Depression on cities, states and regions, their people and economies. It remains an instructive event to the present day. As the United States continues to experience repeated economic contractions, the circumstances of the Great Depression and actions taken to combat its effects are again being compared and contrasted with the national climate to avoid a further downward slide, and perhaps search for possible avenues for improvement. Though losses of employment, home and livelihood are most often associated with the Depression, there are significant triumphs that were achieved primarily through the efforts of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The work relief projects of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), Works Progress Administration (later the Work Projects Administration, or WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and other New Deal agencies are well known in the United States, commemorated through signage, museums, and even worthy of inclusion in school textbooks or lessons in history classes. The physical remnants of these agencies are often readily observable in the form of camps and rustic architecture built in state parks throughout the country by the CCC, bridges built and murals painted under the auspices of the WPA, and miscellaneous other infrastructure improvements and municipal structures built by one agency or another, often misattributed to a different agency than the one who was responsible for their creation.2 Several contributions to the built environment by the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration also share the interesting distinction of being listed on the National Register of Historic Places.