University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations Summer 2019 Restoring America: Historic Preservation and the New Deal Stephanie E. Gray Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Gray, S. E.(2019). Restoring America: Historic Preservation and the New Deal. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/5433 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RESTORING AMERICA: HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND THE NEW DEAL by Stephanie E. Gray Bachelor of Arts Mount Holyoke College, 2013 Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 2016 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2019 Accepted by: Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, Major Professor Robert Weyeneth, Committee Member Patricia Sullivan, Committee Member Lydia Mattice Brandt, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Stephanie E. Gray, 2019 All Rights Reserved. ii DEDICATION For my mother, Lucy Gray. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is said that writing a dissertation is a solitary venture. While that is true to some extent, no dissertation is completed without the support of many people in many places. First, I extend my deepest gratitude to my wonderful committee. To my advisor, Lauren Sklaroff, tremendous thanks for accepting me as a student and teaching me to think and write like a cultural historian. She is a model scholar and I very much hope to emulate her as a I continue to build my career. I have been lucky to have had the support of Robert Weyeneth since the first day of graduate school and have benefitted in countless ways because of his guidance and advice. He introduced me to the field of historic preservation and showed me what it means to be a professor and practitioner. Lydia Mattice Brandt has been the best scholar, friend, and mentor I could have hoped to find in graduate school. I am here at the end because of her positivity, encouragement, and generosity in involving me in Columbia preservation projects. I am very appreciative of and humbled by Patricia Sullivan’s willingness to jump on board and lend her expertise in New Deal history to this work. I extend my thanks, also, to Marjorie Spruill, Andrew Berns, and Yulian Wu, in whose classes I developed the ideas and questions that guided this dissertation. I will forever be grateful to the incredible group of scholars at the University of South Carolina. I would be remiss if I did not thank my former teachers who nurtured my love for the study of history: Ric Doringo, who first encouraged me to engage in public history work my senior year of high school; Jeremy King, who challenged me to speak up in iv classes because he believed my intellectual thoughts were valuable; and Desmond Fitz- Gibbon, who taught me how to ask questions of places and spaces and so very graciously took me on as a senior thesis student when he arrived at Mount Holyoke College. I hope, in some small way, this dissertation can demonstrate how grateful I am to them for guiding me along the path to the Ph.D. For giving me in-the-field experience, I am indebted to the wonderful staff at James A. Garfield National Historic Site and the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, especially Todd Arrington, Mary Lintern, Elizabeth Johnson, and Ehren Foley. This work would not have been possible without the financial support from my home institution. Many thanks to the History Department and Graduate School of the University of South Carolina for providing funding through travel grants, the SPARC grant, and the Bilinski Fellowship. The funding allowed me to take necessary research trips and afforded me the time to devote to writing in my final year. I am also grateful for the patient and liberal aid of archivists, librarians, researchers, and other staff at the many repositories I visited during this project, including the National Archives at College Park, South Caroliniana Library, South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston County Public Library, Minnesota Historical Society, Charles Lindbergh House and Museum, Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Memorial Museum, Henry Whitfield State Museum, Connecticut State Library, Connecticut Historical Society, Yale University, New Haven Public Library, and Hartford Public Library. A long and arduous journey is always made infinitely easier and more enjoyable because of dear friends, and I have not been wanting for those these past six years. Thank you to my brilliant friends and colleagues at the University of South Carolina, some of v whom have doubled as roommates: Janie Campbell, Alyssa Constad, Kristie DaFoe, Diana Garnett, Kayla Boyer Halberg, Patrick O’Brien, Robert Olguin, Meredith Transou, and Andrew Walgren. To the original “gang,” my Ph.D. cohort – Carter Bruns, Oscar Doward, Antony Keane-Dawes, Samuel King, Gary Sellick, and Caleb Wittum – I am glad we were in this together. Cheers to Virginia Harness for spending many an evening in a joint writing session and letting me smother (with love) Juniper, the cat. Your patience, lending of an ear, and reminders that I could do this never went unappreciated. My history friends of Book Club have provided much entertainment and many laughs; I was always happy to turn from my “work” books to reading for fun. Endless and empathic thanks to my public historian pal from the beginning, Abby Curtin Teare; Jordan Williams, whose packages and check-ins always brightened my day; and Soo Jin Lee, for understanding that school kept me from visiting her across the ocean. I also have been extremely fortunate to have had the full support of my family. Thank you, especially, to my sister, Victoria Gray, my grandma, Emma Simoncic, my aunt, Kathy Livingston, and my uncle, Allen Grim. Finally, I wish to thank my parents, Lucy and Jim Gray. They remind me of everything good and important in this world. That they never questioned my intent to become a professional historian or my ability to finish this degree has been a gift. A million times, thank you. vi ABSTRACT In the 1930s, when the United States was in the throes of the greatest economic depression it had ever experienced, politicians, architects, and preservationists – both professionals and amateurs – engaged in the process of defining what it meant to be American by restoring historic landmarks across the nation. The Works Progress Administration (WPA)’s historic shrine restoration program is a significant, yet overlooked, part of the New Deal’s cultural agenda. A “restored” nation – as evinced through its preserved historic architecture – celebrated past American achievements, ingenuity, and diverse local histories that gave the nation its distinctive multicultural character. During the Depression years, historic preservation became a materialized method of cultural production and national recovery. This work examines why the federal government and local political and art leaders engaged in preservation activity as a method of rebuilding America, positioning architecture and material culture as cultural agents. This dissertation focuses on three WPA historic shrine restorations completed between the years 1935 and 1937: the Henry Whitfield State Museum in Guilford, Connecticut; the Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina; and the Charles A. Lindbergh Boyhood Home and State Park in Little Falls, Minnesota. Each of these projects arose from local claims to distinct histories and myths which Americans employed to reconstruct the cultural underpinnings of the nation. The three projects revived the Puritan legacy in small-town Connecticut, resurrected a theatre that was the vii cultural heart of colonial Charleston, and cultivated the pioneers’ landscape of the central Minnesota frontier. From a seventeenth-century stone house in New England, to an eighteenth-century theatre in the Deep South, to a modest farmhouse and surrounding lands in the Upper Midwest, these particular historic shrines reflected the multifaceted nature of the nation’s historic built environment through which Americans chose to mediate modern changes. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv Abstract ............................................................................................................................. vii List of Figures ......................................................................................................................x List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................ xii Introduction: New Deal Culture and Historic Preservation .................................................1 Chapter 1: The Henry Whitfield Museum, Guilford, CT: Safeguarding the Puritan Legacy .......................................................................................................35 Chapter 2: The Dock Street Theatre, Charleston, SC: Reviving the Old South ................95 Chapter 3: The Charles A. Lindbergh Boyhood Home