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The Bowery Boys: New York City History

#338 A New Deal for the Arts: Murals, Music and Theatrical Mayhem

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

šŸ—“ļø 28 August 2020

ā±ļø 70 minutes

šŸ§¾ļø Download transcript

Summary

PART 2 of our two-part podcast series, "A NEW DEAL FOR NEW YORK" In this episode, we look at how one aspect of FDR's New Deal -- the WPA's Federal Project Number One -- was used to put the country's creative community back to work and lift the spirits of downtrodden Americans. Federal Project Number One -- the "artistic wing" of the Works Progress Administration -- inspired one of the most important and lasting cultural revolutions in the United States, an infusion of funds that put musicians, painters, writers and the theater community back to work, creating works that would promote and celebrate the American experience. The already-rich creative communities of New York City thrived during the program in several unique ways -- from the stages of Broadway to the art studios of Harlem.Ā  In this episode we present several tales from the four main units of Federal One -- theĀ Federal Music Project, theĀ Federal Theatre Project, theĀ Federal Art ProjectĀ and theĀ Federal Writers' Project Including the stories of these WPA creators --Ā  --Ā Juanita Hall: A future Tony-winning actress whose WPA-funded gospel chorus performed more than 5,000 times --Ā Orson Welles:Ā A brilliant stage producer (not yet a filmmaker) whose bold stage inventions pressed the limits of government censorship. --Ā Jackson Pollock: A budding painter just finding his artistic voice, making a living working on murals and canvas --Ā Zora Neale Hurston: The Harlem Renaissance anthropologist and novelist who used the WPA program to explore folklore and traditions in Florida.Ā  PLUS: The mural program, the WPA Guides and the contributions of WNYC and the New York Public Library boweryboyshistory.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0

As of 338 of the Bowery Boys, the new deal, Part 2, putting artists back to work.

0:07.4

Hey, it's the Bowery Boys.

0:09.0

Hey.

0:10.0

Support for the Bowery Boys is provided by our listeners.

0:13.7

Join us for as little as $1 a month by visiting patreon.com slash Bowery Boys.

0:23.0

Hi there, welcome to the Bowery Boys. This is Greg Young.

0:25.6

And this is Tom Myers.

0:27.4

And welcome to Part 2 of our mini series on the new deal in New York.

0:33.4

Or how the federal government stepped in to put the nation back to work during the darkest days of the Great Depression.

0:40.4

In last week's show, we talked about really big projects.

0:45.4

We talked about infrastructure and parks and bridges.

0:49.4

But today we're going to turn to the arts.

0:52.4

Because believe it or not, during the Great Depression,

0:55.4

the federal government took the position that American artists also deserved to earn a decent living.

1:03.4

They did.

1:05.4

In that previous show, we discussed how many of New York's WPA projects were conceived of and pushed through by the city's powerful parks commissioner and the head of the Triboral Bridge Authority.

1:19.4

Our old friend, foe, robbermosis.

1:23.4

Yes, and those projects from renovating every park in the city to building La Guarde airport,

1:31.4

put hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers back to work.

1:35.4

And that really was the point of the works progress administration to put people back to work and let them earn a respectable living.

1:43.4

Today, though, we're going to explore another program within the WPA, a program called federal project number one,

1:52.4

which was intended to put artists back to work.

...

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