Reflections on the The Seventy-Fifth New Deal in Oregon Anniversary of the New Deal Essays in Honor of an OHS Exhibit Oregon’s Legacy
by Sarah Baker Munro
LOGGING, FARMING, AND MIN- 1930. Under his leadership, for exam-
6 00 003 bb OHS neg., ing — industries that formed the back- ple, the Federal Reserve System eased bone of Oregon’s economy — began credit. Hoover also held conferences in sliding during the 1920s and plum- Washington, D.C., encouraging busi- meted when the stock market crashed nesses to maintain wages and railroads in October 1929. Ten billion board and utilities to expand construction. feet of lumber had been produced in He substantially increased the bud- Oregon during 1929. The following get for federal public works.4 As the year, demand for lumber weakened Depression deepened due to the ensu- because of a decline in construction, ing banking crisis, however, Hoover’s and production decreased 25 percent initiatives proved weak and ineffective. to 7.5 billion board feet.1 Drought The public blamed Hoover for the plagued the dry desert and plateau economic hardships, naming homeless areas of eastern Oregon, wreaking shantytowns “Hoovervilles.” Oregon havoc on farm production and caus- voters joined the rest of the nation in ing increased layoffs in the agricultural hoping that a political change would sector. Oregon’s mining industry also bring economic relief. experienced a slowdown. As unem- When Franklin Delano Roosevelt ployment rose in Oregon, consumer became president of the United States spending declined, reflecting national on March 4, 1933, he launched a bar- trends. Nationally, unemployment rage of legislation — collectively peaked at 25 percent in 1933, and many known as the New Deal — aimed at who remained in the workforce were providing reform, relief, and recovery employed at reduced wages.2 Over half from the Great Depression. Because of workers were underemployed or Oregon’s economy revolved around unemployed, impacting many Orego- rural industries that were ravaged nians and leaving some homeless. In by the Depression, Oregon was situ- Virginia Darcé, Pouring Concrete, woodcut print, published in The Builders Portland, over 330 people lived at one ated particularly well to benefit from of Timberline (Portland, Ore.: Works Progress Administration, 1937) shantytown at Sullivan’s Gulch.3 Roosevelt’s legislation. During the President Herbert Hoover had ini- initial “Hundred Days” of Roosevelt’s tiated significant recovery efforts in first term, he introduced and Congress
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 © 2008 Oregon Historical Society Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon enacted legislation that restructured showcases a variety of projects that Located at the U.S. Federal Highway Administration banking, agriculture, industry, and changed the face of Oregon during labor relations. One of Roosevelt’s first the 1930s. acts, developed cooperatively by mem- bers of both his and Hoover’s staffs, BUILT UNDER THE PWA, BONN- was the Emergency Banking Relief eville Dam generated electricity that, Act, which was introduced, passed, and starting in 1938, was transmitted to signed into law on the same day.5 rural regions, some of which had Major legislation from the Hun- never before been electrified, includ- dred Days that impacted Oregonians ing isolated farms and towns in valleys also included the National Indus- throughout Oregon. With funding trial Recovery Act, which created from the Emergency Relief Appropria- the Public Works Administration tion Act and in conjunction with the (PWA); the Civilian Conservation Oregon Transportation Department, Corps Reforestation Relief Act, which construction of bridges along the established the CCC; the Federal Oregon coast (the Coos Bay, Siuslaw, Stonemasons place large boulders on one portal to the Toothrock Tunnel on the Emergency Relief Act; and the Beer- Alsea, and Yaquina bridges), tunnels Columbia River Highway in about 1937. Works Progress Administration funds Wine Revenue Act, which affected (the Sunset — now Dennis L. Edwards, supported road building and improvements throughout Oregon. Oregon’s brewing industry. Legisla- — Toothrock, and Salt Creek tunnels), tion enacted during 1935, called the and roads and highways (the Wolf Second New Deal, launched the Creek-Wilson River highway) opened parks, and others. A separate Native Project wrote about the lodge. Grif- Social Security System and, under coastal areas to visitors and improved American unit from Umatilla worked fith personally promoted Timberline the Emergency Relief Appropriation economic opportunities. on a monument to Chief Joseph at to members of the administration in Act, established the Works Progress Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Wallowa Lake. Washington, D.C., by sending them Administration (WPA). Collectively, enrollees built trails and campgrounds WPA workers who built Timber- samples of Christmas cards depict- these programs changed the nation, in national forests and state parks, line Lodge and a ski lift on Mount ing the lodge, news articles about including Oregon, in significant and opening them to visitors. According to Hood expanded the recreational Timberline, and Timberline Lodge, visible ways. U.S. Forest Service records, CCC camps opportunities for skiers and visitors a book decorated with woodcuts by The public works programs, such occupied at various times between 1933 to the Mount Hood National For- Oregon artists on the Oregon Art as the PWA, CCC, and WPA, created and 1942 in the Mount Hood National est. Timberline Lodge was a dream Project. Timberline is an icon of the jobs for many unemployed, destitute Forest included Zigzag, Cascade Locks, pursued by Oregon’s WPA director, WPA — a lodge for the public in a citizens. Their work dramatically Dee, Friend, Bear Springs, Summit Emerson J. Griffith. Many programs national forest. developed or enhanced use of rivers, Meadows (later a WPA camp), High of the WPA in Oregon participated The art collection of Timberline national forests, state parks, roads and Rock, Plaza, Oak Grove, Oak Grove/ in Timberline Lodge: WPA and CCC includes work by Oregon’s most prom- highways, schools, and post offices Estacada, and Latourelle. The Tim- workers built the lodge and its sur- inent artists of the 1930s, including C.S. throughout the state. The year 2008 berline Trail, which circumnavigates rounding landscape; funds from the Price’s Huckleberry Pickers and three marks the seventy-fifth anniversary Mount Hood, was built by CCC Federal Art Project (FAP) furnished other oil paintings; Howard Sewell’s of the inauguration of Roosevelt’s workers, who also worked on road and decorated it; participants in the murals Symbolizing Lodge Builders; New Deal and is an opportunity to construction, ground preparation, Federal Theatre Project produced the- Charles Heaney’s The Mountain; acknowledge its legacy, a bequest that and stonework at Timberline Lodge. atrical sketches for its dedication and Darrel Austin’s Dishwashers, among transformed Oregon. An exhibit at CCC workers constructed buildings opening, and Federal Music Project others; Douglas Lynch’s Calendar of the Oregon Historical Society (OHS), and laid out trails at Silver Falls and musicians played at the same events; Mountain Sports, a series of carved Oregon’s Legacy: The New Deal at 75, Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial state and writers for the Federal Writer’s linoleum panels; and Virginia Darcé’s
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon Courtesy of Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; on loan from the WPA Negatives Collection Paul Bunyan opus sectile murals. The Senator Charles McNary and Congres- exhibit at OHS includes original fur- man Walter Pierce supported New nishings seen by President and Eleanor Deal legislation, but Portland Mayor Roosevelt when he dedicated the lodge John Carson and Oregon Governor on September 28, 1937, including an Charles Martin opposed Roosevelt’s armchair built specifically for the reforms. Robbins concludes that the president by the WPA woodworking New Deal was generally popular in the shop under Ray Neufer. Some of the West, especially in places where hydro- furnishings that reportedly caused electric projects tilted the per-capita Eleanor Roosevelt to exclaim that the expenditures of New Deal programs craft at the lodge was the best she had in the region’s favor. Robbins specifi- seen are also included in the exhibit. cally describes the impacts of the CCC Another part of the seventy-fifth in the national forests and state parks anniversary exhibit at OHS offers a and of the WPA on bridge and road glimpse of the work of Oregon art- building and in the arts, projects that ists, actors, writers, and musicians are illustrated in the exhibit. who participated in the Federal Art Robbins also emphasizes the sexual Women employed under the Division of Professional and Service Projects in Oregon Project, the Federal Theatre Project, discrimination that was commonplace hook rugs to furnish Timberline Lodge in about 1937 . Others wove fabrics for the Federal Writers’ Project, and the in the New Deal, reiterating Neil Bark- drapery, bedspreads, and upholstery or sewed appliquéed draperies for guest rooms Federal Music Project. er’s description of “institutionalized before the lodge opened in February 1938. sexism in the WPA guidelines.”7 Since ON OCTOBER 9, 2004, A LABOR a family could have only one member Arts Symposium — Oregon Art Dur- employed under the WPA, the women’s poaching game and fish; and picking people in culture was, as Horowitz ing the Roosevelt Era: 1933–1945 — held division employed mostly unmarried, berries. He states that the Depression says, an “act of self-development.” at the Portland Art Museum brought divorced, or widowed women. Of the lasted a full decade for many people Denning states that these “plebeian renewed attention to the art produced 14,372 individuals employed on WPA in Oregon. artists and intellectuals,” the political under New Deal projects in Oregon. projects in Oregon in 1936, 3,172 were Horowitz delivered a comple- left, were the Cultural Front who had One participant described efforts to women; of those, 2,500 — over 78 mentary paper, “The New Deal and an unprecedented influence on Ameri- create an inventory of New Deal– percent — were employed on sewing People’s Art: Market Planners and can culture during the Depression.9 funded art in the state — in schools, projects.8 Women held very few jobs Radical Artists,” in which he identifies Horowitz states that New Deal art post offices, libraries, and other public under the WPA, and many who did the major economic and social reforms exhibited a “melding of pragmatism buildings — starting from an inven- were employed by the Women’s and effected through New Deal programs. and idealism” that “provides impor- tory of art in Portland Public Schools Professional Project to sew appliquéed In particular, he examines the cultural tant clues to the way the visual arts done by a local college student.6 Two draperies, weave fabrics for bedspreads programs of the FAP, which, he argues, provided a bridge between govern- other participants, scholars William or upholstery, and hook rugs to furnish shared the consumerist goals of other ment policy and radical visions.” One G. Robbins and David A. Horowitz, Timberline Lodge. Other women were New Deal reforms. Horowitz explains way the FAP reached out to the public presented papers that are published trained as domestic workers. Robbins that New Deal administrators believed in Oregon and elsewhere was through here in conjunction with the exhibit also explains that rural families did employment should be restored for the creation of art centers. at the Oregon Historical Society. not benefit from New Deal programs artists as well as for other workers and The work of artists Elizabeth Robbins’s overview, “Surviving the proportionally and describes people in that artists could support themselves Edmondson and Charlotte Mish in Great Depression: The New Deal in rural areas as existing on a subsistence if patrons existed. He cites Michael the Curry County Art Center — the Oregon,” compares Oregon legislators’ basis by bartering fruits, vegetables, Denning’s argument in The Cultural smallest art center in the country — is responses to Roosevelt’s legislation. and dairy products; exchanging labor; Front that involving working-class illustrated in the seventy-fifth anniver-
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon do some of the things they did. Most reflected in the president’s chair from of them had been out of work a long Timberline Lodge, the watercolors time, then on construction jobs, and from a tiny art center at Gold Beach in they had lost their self-confidence.”10 Curry County, and other objects and A significant legacy of the New Deal photographs included in the seventy- was that spirit of new-found hopeful- fifth anniversary exhibit at the Oregon ness and confidence, a legacy that is Historical Society. Courtesy of Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Roosevelt Courtesy of D. Franklin
Artists painted botanical watercolors native to the Oregon coast at the Curry County Art Center. The Oregon Art Project funded art centers in three Oregon communities: Salem Art Center opened on June 5, 1938; Curry County Art Center in Gold Beach opened in September 1939; and the La Grande Art Center opened in May 1940.
sary exhibit, probably for the first time Gangle’s social commentaries, Children Surviving the since the center closed during the 1940s. of the Poor, a print in the Timberline The Oregon Ceramic Studio (now the collection, a hungry mother has placed Great Depression Museum of Contemporary Craft) was her child symbolically in what appears organized during the New Deal, and to be a garbage can. The New Deal in Oregon the building was constructed with WPA Both Horowitz and Robbins address labor. It became a local venue for artists the psychological devastation dealt by and craftspeople to create, show, and the Depression, and both suggest that by William G. Robbins sell their work. Another avenue for put- New Deal reform offered an opportu- ting art before the public was creation nity to heal “broken spirits” (Horow- of murals in public schools. Horowitz itz) and build a nation where “benefits focuses on Martina Gangle, a politically and privileges would be extended to IT WAS A SPECIAL MOMENT IN of Grand Coulee Dam. When it was radical artist employed by Oregon’s art everyone” (Robbins). In a 1939 scripted time, a gathering place on the arid completed, the president predicted, the program to complete school murals, program about building Timberline northern rim of the Columbia Plain gigantic project would help “develop” including the ones at Rose City Park Lodge, Ray Neufer, supervisor of the where more than twenty thousand the Far West and provide opportunity School, and to paint wildflower water- WPA woodworking shop where the people came to hear President Frank- for common folk, people suffering colors for Timberline Lodge. Horowitz furniture and carved detailing were lin D. Roosevelt speak in August 1934, from want and hardship. But Grand acknowledges that some of Gangle’s created for Timberline Lodge and during the early construction stages Coulee and the lower-river Bonneville other work is politically provocative, Silver Falls State Park, described the including works such as County Hos- workers who joined him: “Most of the pital, which depicts destitute people men came in from construction proj- An earlier version of this essay was presented before the Labor Arts Forum on the Art of the waiting for medical care. In another of ects and they didn’t know they COULD Roosevelt Era at the Portland Art Museum, October 9, 2004.
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon projects were much more; they were ravages of downstream flooding, and servation Corps, the National Youth employment bureau. In Multnomah visible symbols of the New Deal’s the irrigation of arid, unproductive Administration, and, later, the Works County, a group of labor progres- propensity for social innovation and lands. There were still other dimen- Progress Administration. The state of sives organized an Unemployed Citi- experiment — the administration’s sions to the New Deal’s influence in Oregon mirrored the rest of the nation zens’ League. In Coos Bay, residents hasty and sometimes disorderly plan- Oregon and the Pacific Northwest with its bank failures, bankruptcies, formed Workers’ Alliances to speak ning strategies to seek a way out of the — and that was vested in the govern- business foreclosures, and high unem- for the unemployed. The Portland nation’s economic and social crisis. ment’s willingness to engage in public ployment. Amid the general demoral- League and others like it organized the Despite its sometimes helter-skelter works projects to create jobs, and to ization of the American economy and unemployed into urban cooperatives approach, Franklin Roosevelt’s New regenerate local economies, to use the lengthening unemployment lines, and made appeals for public works Deal administration marked the emer- federal moneys to serve the needs of President Herbert Hoover — a gradu- projects. Portland’s establishment gence of a vastly expanded federal pres- its less-fortunate citizens. Roosevelt’s ate of Stanford University and the first treated the League with contempt, as ence in the American West. Triggered overwhelming electoral successes in president from the West — insisted a group of people looking for hand- by the demoralized economic condi- the West — he carried every Western that charities and local communities outs. Mayor Joseph Carson, voted into tions and wrenching poverty of the state in 1932 and 1936 — provides some should care for the destitute. Port- office in the same election that brought Great Depression, the 1930s witnessed indication of the enormous popularity land’s political and business leaders Franklin Roosevelt to the presidency, the emergence of an activist federal of New Deal projects in the region. It were in agreement with the president told local business leaders that his government, an effort at centralized also attests to the skills of a powerful in opposing direct relief. administration would not be looking planning to advance the public good. political personality, a man whose The economic collapse, however, to the federal government for charity. In subsequent addresses on the appeal bridged social classes. In his was colossal, completely overwhelm- Through his long tenure in office, Car- development of the Columbia River, four successful campaigns for presi- ing local relief agencies. County and son opposed public power, and during Roosevelt praised the rehabilitative dent, Roosevelt ran ahead of other local taxes went delinquent, making the West Coast dock strike of 1934, the social, economic, and environmental Democratic candidates in Oregon and it difficult to pay public employees, mayor gave his full support to water- benefits of such work — the ameni- the Northwest, garnering an average including teachers. Desperation, front employers. Carson’s language ties that cheap electrical power would of 20 percent more votes than other protest, and, in some instances, direct became even more inflammatory in bring to all citizens, an end to the Democrats on the same ticket. action were the order of the day. In opposing Roosevelt’s Works Progress The top fourteen the City of Portland, “Hoovervilles” Administration (WPA). With the sup- states in per capita fed- appeared along the Willamette River: port of a majority on the City Council, eral expenditures were one hundred people were living under Carson also fought efforts in 1938 to all in the West. There the Ross Island Bridge; more than form a City Housing Authority, with was another interest- three hundred were bivouacked in Sul- one of his councilmen arguing that ing twist to the New livan’s Gulch; and another large group public housing was akin to “unadulter- Deal story in the region: lived at the old Guild’s Lake site. Fear- ated Communism entirely” and would although many West- ing social disruption in the summer depress housing values.2 ern political leaders of 1932, Governor Julius Meier wrote In contrast, other Oregon politi- greeted federal relief President Hoover: “We must have help cians — Republican Senator Charles with skepticism — and from the federal government if we McNary and Democratic Congress- this was especially true are to avert suffering . . . and possible man Walter Pierce — enjoyed cordial 1
Located at the U.S. Federal Highway Administration Highway Federal at the U.S. Located in Oregon — the gen- uprisings.” relations with President Roosevelt and eral public was largely When Franklin Roosevelt was fully participated in pushing through President Franklin Delano Roosevelt travels from enthusiastic for newly inaugurated in March 1933, 40,000 Congress the most famous schedule Bonneville Dam to Timberline Lodge to dedicate the established agencies Portlanders were on relief and 24,000 of reform legislation in American his- lodge on September 28, 1937. like the Civilian Con- people had registered with the local tory: the Civil Works Administration,
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon the Civilian Conservation Corps, and CCC and WPA workers also built other bridges also provided employ- TransportationLocated of at the Oregon Department Collection the Farm Credit Administration. Both Timberline Lodge on the southern ment for a large number of people. men also supported the Social Security slopes of Mt. Hood and the Oregon When the coastal bridge network was Act of 1935, with Pierce disappointed Department of Forestry buildings in completed, it vastly quickened travel only in its inadequate provisions for Salem. along Oregon’s Highway 101, eliminat- old-age pensions. Oregon also elected When the Roosevelt administration ing slow and laborious ferry crossings Democrat Charles Martin, a conserva- used the Emergency Relief Appropria- operating on the many streams and tive who opposed unions and anything tions Act of 1935 to establish the Works estuaries. that he considered radical, to the Progress Administration, the initiative The WPA put more than 25,000 governor’s office in 1934. Martin, who launched the largest, most significant, people on the federal payroll in Port- became a stock character for ridicule, and most controversial of all New Deal land during its existence, employing was an anti-New Dealer, opposing programs. The WPA was the most vis- citizens to work on projects large public power and all New Deal pro- ible of all government relief efforts, and small. To maximize its potential grams. The Democratic Party refused and before it was dismantled in 1942, for direct relief, the WPA shied away to endorse Martin for a second term the agency employed more that 8.5 from heavy construction equipment in office. million people nationwide. The WPA’s and relied on hand tools for most of Despite the opposition of Port- chief function was to provide people its work tasks. Local projects included land’s political leadership and Ore- with pride and a small income when Portland’s Rocky Butte Scenic Drive, gon’s governor, New Deal programs there were few employment prospects Portland Municipal Airport (the were immensely popular in the state. anywhere. The agency’s larger achieve- most significant effort in Multnomah Perhaps the most celebrated, the ment was to lessen the potential for County), and hundreds of small-scale Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), social disorder and to assure that the enterprises such as the now controver- Among Oregon highway engineer operated camps all across the state, basic framework of America’s capi- sial rock wall along Johnson Creek. Conde McCullough’s most technically providing modest wages, food and talist economy would remain intact One of the WPA’s more significant challenging bridge designs is the shelter, and productive outdoor work following the Depression. public works involved improvements 17,000-foot cantilever bridge spanning for young men. The CCC eventually WPA workers constructed the art- to Macleay Park in Portland’s west Coos Bay. Completed in 1936, the included American Indian tribes in its fully crafted bridges over Oregon’s hills, where laborers cleared brush and structure is sufficiently high to allow programs. Before the Second World coastal streams and estuaries. Designed built an extensive trail system. ocean-going ships to pass underneath. War made the CCC redundant, the by Oregon’s famous highway engineer, The WPA hired Portlanders to agency employed thousands of “boys” Conde McCullough, the still standing build the Wolf Creek and Wilson River in forty-nine camps across the state. and aesthetically pleasing bridges offer highways, construction projects that In still another initiative, the WPA (There were no women in the CCC.) visual testimony to both design and greatly speeded travel to the coast. supported Portland musicians to Young men worked in forestry and engineering expertise and workers’ The WPA also hired skilled Portland- put on public performances around conservation jobs, building roads, skills. When it was completed in 1936, area artisans to produce ornamental the city, including the Portland Art trails, shelters, lookouts, and provid- the 1,700 foot cantilever bridge span- wrought iron for a variety of public Museum and Marylhurst and Reed ing foot soldiers for a vastly expanded ning Coos Bay was the longest in the buildings and places across the state. colleges. The Federal Arts’ Theater and labor force for fighting forest fires. Pacific Northwest. Because of its vault- These included straps, hinges, handles, Writers’ projects were other activities Among the more notable and lasting ing height to allow ocean-going ships and other items made specifically for that attracted a good deal of attention public venues constructed with CCC to pass underneath, the engineering Timberline Lodge. The University of — and controversy. The agency hired labor were Silver Falls State Park, blueprint for the bridge involved com- Oregon and Oregon State University actors, writers, and artists for civic and east of Salem, and Jessie M. Honey- plicated planning, lay-out, and design also display some of this magnificent public projects. WPA workers inven- man State Park on the central coast. strategies. Work on the Coos Bay and wrought-iron workmanship. toried historical materials in county
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon Located at Oregon State Library courthouses, and the Writers’ Project worn practice of poaching fish and produced the Oregon Guide, a descrip- game usually meant enough food on tive narrative of the state’s history, its the table. Family members frequently physical landscape, and its cultural exchanged labor on neighboring farms heritage. Many public buildings in and ranches for fruits, vegetables, Oregon still display WPA-funded art- and dairy products. Across most of work and murals, such as one visible Oregon, supplies of wood for cooking in the Ontario post office. and heating were readily accessible, Although WPA-funded work and wild fruits, especially black berries included women, they comprised only west of the Cascades, were seasonally a small percentage of overall agency abundant and easy to preserve. employment. Federal, state, and The Great Depression remained a local administrators operated on the fact of life in Oregon for a full decade assumption that useful and productive and began to ease only when war The Works Progress Administrations’ Federal Music Project supported free public work primarily involved construc- orders slowly began to energize the musical performances, providing small stipends for out-of-work musicians. The tion jobs, traditionally the province American economy. Despite improved Portland Symphony performed at various public venues around the city, including of males. While Eleanor Roosevelt conditions in the late 1930s, the WPA the South Park Blocks. and a few others spoke out on behalf continued to provide employment of WPA employment for women, for a large number of workers in the “institutionalized sexism in the WPA state’s more heavily populated coun- guidelines,” writer Neil Barker argues, ties. Other public works projects reflected in its declining number of reform was pointed toward building “made most women ineligible for employed an even larger number of school-age children. But those popu- a nation whose benefits and privileges work relief.”3 Moreover, women able people at marginal wages. Although lation characteristics were transitory, would be extended to everyone. In an to obtain relief work were placed the pay was low, federally subsidized subject to watershed events such as August 1934 address at Glacier National mostly in sewing-related jobs, house- work enabled citizens to earn a modest the Second World War, a profoundly Park’s Two Medicine Chalet, President keeping, or serving school lunches to income at a time when job prospects dramatic and transforming period in Roosevelt observed that the great needy children. Portland-area women were few. Throughout the 1930s, the modern American history. The Japa- construction projects in the American also found WPA jobs through the number of people receiving some form nese attack on Pearl Harbor brought West would benefit the entire citizenry, household service-training program, of direct relief remained high. Such an end to years of unemployment and with the “objective of building human a closely supervised, class-based plan help included support for dependent stagnation, and workers accustomed happiness.”5 The president shared that provided domestic labor for the children and seniors, surplus food, to long periods of unemployment some of that vision when he dedicated city’s elite families. and a category referred to as general suddenly found themselves sellers in Timberline Lodge on the south slope In Portland and Oregon’s lesser assistance. Despite the variety of a buyers’ market. of Mount Hood in September 1937. urban centers, people muddled New Deal work-relief programs, the But the New Deal left lasting legacies A bronze tablet on the second floor through the depression years, birth- economy moved unevenly through — which have seemingly been under balcony overlooking the parking lot ing fewer children, living in multiple- partial recoveries and slumps for the attack ever since, especially during the commemorates the event: family households, surviving on remainder of the decade. twenty-first century. Although New sporadic and part-time employment, As for Portland at the end of the Deal reforms have proved endlessly Timberline Lodge, Mount Hood National Forest dedicated September 28, 1937, by the and doing occasional work-relief jobs. Depression decade, urban historian contentious, and although not all President of the United States as a monu- In the outback — where families still Carl Abbott describes “a city that had of the social experiments were suc- ment to the skill and faithful performance of 4 practiced semi-subsistence lifestyles — ceased to grow.” Portland had also cessful and lasting, the social vision workers on the rolls of the Works Progress barter, labor exchanges, and the time- grown older during the decade, a trait and common purpose of New Deal Administration.
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon needy families. Millions of others were rhetoric identified citizenship with “the assisted through low-interest loans and people,” whose strength and common refinanced farm and home mortgages. purpose were to lift the nation out of Almost all of these activities, from the Depression. Public art was to be social welfare subsidies to public compatible with this newly emerging works, were designed to revitalize or national culture. New Deal officials saw protect the economy by stimulating mass art as a public commodity. They believed purchasing power. By the late-1930s, a that the government could take the lead coalition of retail, banking, and labor in popularizing the production and interests, led by Federal Reserve Board consumption of art among ordinary Chair Marriner Eccles, had worked with Americans so that the arts would no lon- administration economists to enact ger be the privileged preserve of the rich. fiscal and monetary policies embrac- Articulating a philosophy of aesthetic ing deficit spending, huge public invest- populism, federal administrators hoped ment, progressive tax policies, and relief to bring representational art to the masses programs. By distributing government through works that addressed the lives of The New Deal benefits, credit, and infrastructure ordinary people and the experiences of an grants, they hoped to stimulate pri- authentically American culture. vate investment, get people back to Artistic realism contrasted with the and People’s Art work, and reinvigorate the market. As revolution in abstract canvases that had reformers, New Dealers believed that begun in the 1910s with Cubists like Pablo Market Planners and Radical Artists the economy could be salvaged through Picasso — who painted images from intelligent planning and constructive multiple perspectives, a phenomenon by David A. Horowitz social action. One result was the social viewed as an unwelcome symbol of social security system of unemployment insur- and cultural fragmentation by Roosevelt ance, old-age pensions, assistance to arts officials. New Dealers preferred single mothers, and help for the physi- genres like the mural — which could RESPONDING AFTER THE 1932 Washington. Agencies like the Tennes- cally disabled. The final example of their deliver images to people in public arenas election to 25 percent unemployment, see Valley Authority (TVA), the Civil- work was the GI Bill of 1944, the massive like housing projects, schools, hospitals, falling demand for goods, demoralizing ian Conservation Corps (CCC), and public investment in education, aid, correctional institutions, or post offices. deflation, and massive evaporation of the Works Progress Administration training, and home financing for World Roosevelt era projects often relied on investment, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (WPA) expanded or rebuilt elements War II veterans that facilitated the rise of print reproductions to make art accessible New Deal committed the federal gov- of the nation’s infrastructure such as the post–World War II middle class. to millions of Americans. The federal gov- ernment to unprecedented intervention Oregon’s Pacific Coast Highway and The New Deal sought to accomplish ernment even created an Index of Ameri- in a peacetime economy with an agenda Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge. New these goals through a discourse empha- can Design — a collection of twenty-two of relief, recovery, and reform. Banks, Deal policies backed industrial labor sizing the government’s role in unifying thousand graphic recreations (usually public utilities, stock exchanges, mines, unions, enacted minimum wage laws, the people around common citizenship watercolors or drawings) of handicraft agriculture, and working conditions established the social security system, and service to the nation. Although artifacts dating as far back as the eigh- all now came under regulation from and provided work and cash relief to mainly directed toward European eth- teenth century. These exhibits were nics, particularly Roman Catholics and displayed in popular gathering places An earlier version of this essay was presented before the Labor Arts Forum on the Art of the Jews, in contrast to African American, such as department stores. More than Roosevelt Era at the Portland Art Museum, October 9, 2004. Hispanic, or Asian minorities, Roosevelt half of the five hundred participants in
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon the arts had to be restructured through the article expressed concern that gov- democratization. ernment sponsorship might encourage Because Roosevelt’s economic recov- stylistic rigidity and even isolation from ery plan required the restoration of psy- public taste, it acknowledged that chological morale and social solidarity, the New Deal had induced a cultural Bill Allen, photographer Allen, Bill creation of a cultural democracy was revolution by bringing the American an essential goal of the federal arts audience and artist face to face. program. Art could be accessible to Representational artists C.S. Price, ordinary people if artists engaged the Charles Heaney, Doug Lynch, Lucia national spirit by depicting the experi- Wiley, Louis Buntz, Andrew Vincent, ences and aspirations of common citi- Rachel Griffin, Harry Wentz, Martina zens. Such an effort could also serve to Gangle, and Arthur and Albert Run- portray the dignity of ordinary people, quist were among the thirty-three whose economic empowerment as painters and artisans to participate consumers was an essential part of in the Oregon Federal Arts Project. the New Deal recovery scheme. Visual Between 1935 and 1938, government imagery, moreover, could be used to subsidies resulted in over seventy-five cement the administration’s political murals and paintings for the state’s base by documenting the social and public schools and libraries, colleges Martina Gangle’s The Homesteaders, one of two mural panels of The Columbia economic conditions that it hoped to and universities, hospitals, military River Pioneer Migration, was installed in 1940 at Portland’s Rose City Grade School under the auspices of the federally funded Oregon Art Project. improve. Such a populist emphasis installations, and facilities like the Port no doubt discomforted some political of Portland and Timberline Lodge. conservatives but served the strategic Unlike most of their colleagues, who needs of Roosevelt Democrats. accepted federal sponsorship primar- the federal government’s Painting Project thousand painters and sculptors were The importance of cultural democ- ily out of economic necessity, three were involved in documentary photog- on relief and another fifteen hundred racy received full exposure by Holger of the program’s artists, Arthur and raphy or applied arts like stage design or without means of support when the Cahill, the director of the FAP’s Paint- Albert Runquist and their colleague archival documentation. Art was further WPA initiated the FAP. To qualify for ing Project. The program’s organiza- Martina Gangle, came to their work brought to the people through six hun- the program, artists were required to tion, wrote Cahill, proceeded “on the as self-conscious political radicals dred local art centers across the nation, get on relief except for the 10 percent principle that it is not the solitary genius associated with a communist move- including facilities in Salem, La Grande, of participants who could be selected but a sound general movement which ment that viewed art as a medium for and the Oregon Coast. as instructors or administrators with- maintains art as a functioning part of advancing social consciousness and Inaugurated under the WPA in 1935, out regard for financial need. Second, any cultural scheme.”1 A long exposi- class solidarity. the Federal Arts Project (FAP) shared Roosevelt officials saw the arts as an tion on WPA arts projects in Fortune To understand why decided critics the consumerist and populist aesthetic industry whose ability to market prod- magazine in 1937 expounded on these of capitalism could eagerly participate goals of the Roosevelt administration. ucts aided the long-run health of capi- insights. Federally subsidized art pro- in a reformist New Deal program to There were some practical reasons for talism. If Americans learned to become grams, it suggested, functioned “not bolster a faltering market and sustain this approach. First, the administra- art patrons, the arts could become only to let the artists produce art, but social morale, one must understand tion believed that economic recovery self-supporting, returning artists to to educate and interest the masses of that the inception of the Federal Arts depended upon restoration of employ- work and contributing to enhanced the people and prepare . . . the kind of Project coincided with the advent in ment for all workers — including those economic activity. To accomplish this, soil in which ‘a genuine art movement’ 1935 of the People’s or Popular Front, who made their living in the arts. Four however, New Deal leaders insisted that might be expected to flower.”2 Although the broad coalition promoted by the
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon Courtesy of Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; on loan from the WPA Negatives Collection she had been born in 1906 into a Portland Art Museum’s American Art poor Roman Catholic family near Collection). Woodland, Washington. At first, she Gangle’s conversion to radicalism attended a country grade school and occurred that same year, when she worked with her family as a migrant came across a Portland demonstration fruit picker before moving to live on behalf of imprisoned San Francisco with her grandmother in the Lents labor activist Tom Mooney. Frustrated district of southeast Portland, where at slim Depression prospects for mak- she attended Franklin High School ing a living in the vocation she loved while working as a domestic. Consid- and horrified at the widespread pov- ered a promising artist by teachers, erty of the 1930s, she joined the Party. she borrowed two hundred dollars Socialism, she believed, incorporated to attend the Oregon Normal School the Christian ideals taught by her (now Western Oregon University) for mother and seemed to offer the chance a year, followed by a brief stint as an that her dreams of a better society elementary school teacher. Unmarried, could be turned into practical reality. she gave birth to a son in 1926 and sup- In 1936, Wentz helped Gangle ported herself for four years by helping secure a ninety-dollar-a-month posi- to run a boarding house. tion with the Federal Arts Project. She Martina Gangle works on a sculpture for the Benjamin Franklin statue at Portland’s With meager savings and a personal was assigned to the Timberline Lodge Franklin High School. loan, Martina gained admission to the project, the ambitious new ski lodge Portland Art Museum School in 1931, and tourist facility that the WPA was where she eventually earned a schol- building on Mt. Hood. Over the next international communist movement to development that promised to prepare arship for two years. There she came three years, Gangle contributed to forge a united stance against fascism. To them for tasks beyond menial labor. under the influence of the legendary the project with a series of wildflower be a Communist in the late-1930s was At the same time, progressive culture painter and teacher, Harry Wentz, watercolors and several woodcut to stand for antifascism, world peace, focused on proletarian themes and who taught students to take an intui- engravings including Sunrise, Wood industrial labor solidarity, and racial/ experiences and conveyed a “labor tive approach to their surroundings Carvers, and Mess Hall, each of which ethnic pluralism as well as to support metaphysic” that asserted the dignity once principles of color and design was included in Builders of Timberline, liberal governments like the New Deal. and beauty of working-class arts and were mastered. While most of her a pamphlet published by the WPA At the American Writers’ Congress of entertainment, the involvement of classmates hailed from the local social in 1937.Other Timberline works by 1935, literary figures like Kenneth Burke the arts in the union movement, and elite, Gangle had to work as a domestic Gangle included a linoleum block and Edmund Wilson asked leftists to a defense of arts and crafts against during the school years and pick fruit entitled WPA Workshop and a wood shift their focus from the “worker” to the commercial exploitation. The “cul- during the summers. Despite these dis- carving of cherry pickers. “people” and to replace sectarian calls for tural front” would leave a distinctly advantages, Wentz helped her get on Initially assigned to a Communist “revolution” with appeals to humanism vernacular influence on American the federal government’s Public Works club of intellectuals and artists, Mar- and democracy.3 fiction, theater, film, broadcasting, of Art program in 1934, for which she tina met the Runquist brothers, who, as As Michael Denning has suggested, and painting.4 was paid twenty-five dollars a piece for she once reminisced, “took me under a broad “cultural front” of progres- About a year after leaving Port- three oil panels depicting her mother their wing and educated me about life sives emerged alongside the “popular land’s Museum Art School in 1934, feeding chickens, road laborers, and a in general and helped me with my art front.” For these working-class activ- Martina Gangle joined the Com- group of prune orchard pickers (the work.” 5 Gangle soon became treasurer ists, culture represented an act of self- munist Party. One of seven children, latter is on permanent display in the of the Oregon branch of the Union of
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon Courtesy of John Wilson Special Collections, Multnomah County Library, Portland, Oregon Cultural Workers, joined the Oregon historical themes with as little political Arts Guild, became secretary of the controversy as possible, the Rose City Workers Alliance of Oregon, sat-in at panels enabled Martina to emphasize welfare offices on behalf of Dust Bowl the egalitarian cooperation among migrants, and was arrested in Port- ordinary men and women that sus- land as part of an antifascist protest tained her radical faith. against a visit by a Japanese training When Gangle assisted the Run- ship. She loved to paint flowers, trees, quists on Early Oregon (1941), an Ore- chickens, and nurturing women, the gon Art Project mural for Pendleton latter no doubt a tribute to her beloved High School, the depiction of western mother. By the late 1930s, however, her Indians and cattle drivers in idealized work reflected a decided progressive harmony was one that appealed to political consciousness. A block print the sensibilities she shared with the entitled Fruit Tramps was included brothers. Albert and Arthur had been in the 1937 Portland exhibition of the born to Swedish dairy farmers in the radical American Artists’ Congress. Aberdeen, Washington, area during Her County Hospital, a linoleum cut the 1890s. Coming to the University of of poor people patiently waiting for Oregon to play football, they became emergency room care, was accepted fascinated by painting and later stud- for the 1939 New York World’s Fair ied with Harry Wentz at the Portland Martina Gangle assists in painting the idealized Early Oregon (1941), an Oregon American Art Today Exhibition. Art Museum and with John Sloan at Art Project mural for Pendleton High School by Arthur and Albert Runquist. Workers Alliance Conference, an oil the Art Students League of New York. painting, was shown at the Portland After brief stints as commercial artists, Art Museum in 1940. the brothers settled in at Wentz’s house Just as Martina Gangle assumed a on Portland’s Northeast Clackamas a portrait of working-class destitution to depict those countries free of the radical political persona, anti–New Street. Between 1934 and 1941, Arthur and despair, was featured at the 1939 horrors of Nazi, Fascist, and Japanese Deal sentiments and an attempt to completed easel paintings for New World’s Fair exhibition followed by imperialism.6 Both Arthur Runquist purge communists from federal agen- Deal arts projects such as Early Port- Scrapped (1941), a symbolic lament and Gangle produced an incredible cies led Congress to virtually abandon land Fire Drill (1937) and Homesteaders over the exploitation of labor. Once the number of gouache paintings, water- the WPA in 1939 by turning the Federal (1939). Murals included the Pendleton United States entered World War II, colors, and drawings documenting the Arts Project over to the states. By the project as well as The Tree of Knowledge Arthur signed on as a welder and crew work of the Vancouver yards, which “eighteen-month ruling,” no employee (1937), a work placed on the main supervisor at the Kaiser Shipyards in employed 38,000 people at one point in these programs could be retained stairway at the University of Oregon Vancouver, Washington, where Gangle and produced 141 Navy ships. Their for a total of eighteen months. Hired Library, as well as installations at the worked as a welder and occasional work profiles the grandeur of the under the Oregon Art Project in 1940, Sedro Woolley, Washington, post office drafting room technician. Involv- shipbuilding process as represented Gangle was assigned to complete two (1940) and the Tongue Point Naval Air ing an antifascist alliance between by the mighty cranes and construction murals for Portland’s Rose City Grade Station near Astoria (now a Job Corps the United States, Great Britain, and “ways.” It also pictures the dignity of School. Entitled The Columbia River Center). the Soviet Union, the war took the the yard’s diverse work force, the pri- Pioneer Migration, the work consisted Like their politicized comrade, shape of a people’s crusade against vate moments and shared jokes of the of two panels depicting Homesteaders Martina Gangle, the Runquists pur- dictatorship and tyranny. Indeed, labor crews, and the price that long and Rafting. Although arts adminis- sued projects independent of govern- the term “free world” was invented hours and dangerous work exacted trators steered mural content toward ment sponsorship. Arthur’s Pensioned, by Roosevelt administration liberals on the crews.
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon Bill Allen,photographer Following the war, Gangle tempo- creative way to work toward the recon- and idealism in these paintings, draw- rarily returned to the fruit orchards struction of an ailing economy, the ings, and prints provides important and, after marrying merchant sea- healing of broken spirits, the dream clues to the way the visual arts pro- man and logger Hank Curl, took on of a peaceful life following a terrible vided a bridge between government a full agenda of social and political war, and the restoration of hope. From policy and radical visions in the Age causes both inside and out the Com- hindsight, the melding of pragmatism of Roosevelt. munist Party until her death in 1994. Meanwhile, the Runquists survived at Wentz’s North Coast cottage at Neahkahnie Beach between 1945 and NOTES 1963, where their paintings focused on the resilience of nature amid logging “The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary 7. Barker, “Portland’s Works Progress clear-cuts and commercial develop- of the New Deal” Administration,” 428. ment. Eight years after they returned by Sarah Baker Munro 8. Report on Women’s and White Collar to Portland, the bachelor brothers The author acknowledges the invaluable Project for October, November 18, 1936, both died in 1971. support of sponsors of the Labor Arts Federal Project No. 1 Materials for Oregon (651.3), Records of the WPA (Record Group As committed socialists and politi- Forum — the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, Portland Art Museum, and 69), National Archives at College Park, College cally sensitive artists, the Runquists Friends of Timberline — as well as the Park, Maryland. and Gangle seldom sold paintings, program participants, and wishes to recognize 9. Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: the more often trading them for bail contributions from Bill and Ginny Allen, Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth money for demonstration arrests, Patrick Barry, Marrialyce Blanchard, Margaret Century (London: Verso, 1997), xv, xvii. medical assistance, or other needs. Bullock, Jim Carmin, Mark Davison, Robert 10. Builders of Tomorrow, a Radio Program Hadlow, Megan Hartmann, Jeff Jaqua, Lois prepared especially for the Works Progress It is perhaps ironic that the spiritual Leonard, Rick McClure, David Milholland, Administration of Oregon, program number roots of their artwork were nurtured Lloyd Musser and many others. 15, September 30, 1939, continuity written in the Age of Roosevelt, that period 1. Ivan Doig, “Counting the Trees,” in by Frances Fleming Selleck with research by from 1932 to 1945 when a pragmatic Arthur Runquist, The Tree of Early Forestry Research: A History of the the Oregon Writers’ Project, Oregon State and consumerist-oriented govern- Knowledge (1937), a Federal Arts Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Library, Salem. Project mural for the University of ment in Washington, D.C., fostered Station, 1925–1975 (Washington, D.C.: Forest Oregon Library Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Surviving the Great Depression” a reformulated capitalist agenda that November 1977), 10. by William G. Robbins could include radical artists with 2. David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: 1. Meier is quoted in Neil Barker, socialist allegiances. Most likely, such and privately initiated work that met The American People in Depression and War, “Portland’s Works Progress Administration,” a combination would not have been the needs of both parties by dignifying 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, Oregon Historical Quarterly 101:4 (Winter 2000 415 possible were it not for the fact the ordinary people and expressing the 1999), 163–66. ), . 3. Neil Barker, “Portland’s Works Progress 2. Carson is quoted in Carl Abbott, strategic interests of Popular Front hope of a better life. Administration,” Oregon Historical Quarterly Portland: Planning, Politics, and Growth in a communism pushed the movement In later years, Gangle complained 101:4 (Winter 2000): 415. Twentieth-Century City (Lincoln: University toward reformism and democratic that upper-class Federal Arts Project 4. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 54–69. of Nebraska Press, 1981), 117. humanism while a global war brought administrators had exploited artists 5. Ibid., 135–36. 3. Barker, “Portland’s Works Progress communists and capitalist interna- like herself and denigrated the political 6. A non-profit group in Portland, Administration,” 428. Friends of Art in the Schools, has recently 4. Abbott, Portland, 109. tionalists together in the same coali- activists amongst them. Yet, New Deal picked up where the initial inventory left off 5. The speech is quoted in Richard L. tion. The resulting fusion of energies and World War II art was not about and is seeking to complete it and to preserve Neuberger, Our Promised Land, Introduction left Oregonians and the world with a the artists or a revolutionary view of art in the schools from the New Deal and by David Nicandri (Moscow: University of rich legacy of publicly sponsored art society. Rather, these works offered a other eras. Idaho Press, 1938, reprint 1989), 90.
OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 Reflections on the New Deal in Oregon Suggested Readings (Robbins) Suggested Readings (Horowitz) Neil Barker, “Portland’s Works Progress New Deal emphasis on the restoration of Administration,” Oregon Historical Quarterly consumer purchasing power is one of the main 101:4 (Winter 2000). themes of Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: Jewel Lansing, Portland: People, Politics, New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War and Power, 1851–2001. Corvallis: Oregon State (New York: Vintage Books, 1995). For public University Press, 2003. arts programs, see Jonathan Harris, Federal Art Richard Lowitt. The New Deal and the and National Culture: The Politics of Identity West. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, in New Deal America (Cambridge: Cambridge 1984. University Press, 1995) and Bruce I. Bustard, E. Kimbark MacColl. The Growth of a A New Deal for the Arts (Seattle: University of City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon, Washington Press, 1997). See also the relevant 1915–1950. Portland: The Georgian Press, 1979. sections of Francis Pohl, Framing America: William H. Mullins. The Depression A Social History of American Art (New York: and the Urban West Coast 1929–1933: Los Thames and Hudson, 2002). Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. For Oregon’s public art programs during Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. the 1930s, see Carolyn Howe, “The Production William G. Robbins. “Franklin D. of Culture on the Oregon Federal Art Projects Roosevelt and the Emergence of the Modern of the Works Progress Administration” West,” Journal of the West, 34:2. (April 1995), (M.A. thesis, Portland State University, 1980). 43–48. Overviews of the state’s role in creating a William G. Robbins, Oregon, This Storied regional art tradition can be found in Roger Land. Portland: Oregon Historical Society Hull, “The Lure of Pacific Northwest Art,” Press, 2005. American Art Review 11:1 (1999), 168–77, and in Rachael Griffin, Art of the Pacific Northwest “The New Deal and People’s Art” from the Thirties to the Present (Washington, by David A. Horowitz D.C.: National Collection of Fine Arts for 1. Holger Cahill, quoted in “Unemployed the Smithsonian Institution, 1974). See also Arts: WPA’s Four Art Projects: Their Origins, Ginny Allen and Jody Klevit, Oregon Painters: Their Operations,” Fortune (May 1937), 114. The First Hundred Years, 1859–1959 (Portland: 2. Ibid., 115. Oregon Historical Society Press, 1999). 3. The most definitive treatment of the For two of the region’s radical painters, manner in which 1930s Popular Front radicals see Katrina Lee Gilkey, “Observations of brought the celebration of “the people” to Resilience and Defeat in Arthur Runquist’s expressive culture can be found in Michael Paintings of Labor and the Land” (M.A. Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring thesis, Reed College, 2004), and David A. of American Culture in the Twentieth Century Horowitz, Martina Gangle Curl: People’s Art (London, New York: Verso, 1997), esp. 123–25. and the Mothering of Humanity (Portland: 4. Ibid. Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, 5. Martina Gangle to Tillie Aune, n.d. 2004). Samples of the work of Martina [circa 1988-89], Papers of Martina Gangle Gangle and others can be found in The Curl, Museum of People’s Art: Labor, Life, Builders of Timberline Lodge (Portland, and Landscape of the Pacific Northwest, Bay Ore.: Works Progress Administration, 1937) City, Oregon. and in Chauncey Del French, Waging War 6. For the context of the term “free world,” on the Home Front: An Illustrated Memoir see David A. Horowitz, America’s Political Class of World War II (Corvallis: Oregon State under Fire: The Twentieth Century’s Great University Press and Oregon Cultural Heritage Culture War (New York: Routledge, 2003), 85. Commission, 2004).
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