Judy: It is a hidden history
right in front of our eyes --
the buildings, art works and so
much more created all over the
country during the new deal of
the 1930's and 40's.
To bring that hidden history to
light, there's an online archive
documenting those sites across
the country.
Jeffrey brown has more for our
arts and culture series, canvas.
>> This was one of the great
bridges of his time and it still
is.
Jeffrey: The bay bridge, an 8
mile long connector between San
Francisco and Oakland, first
completed in 1936, these days
carrying an average of some 3.5
million vehicles a month.
To gray brechin, a historical
geographer, it's also a symbol
of a big idea.
Gray: What this bridge
represents to me is actually
what could be done, 80 years
ago, during the depths of the
great depression to get out of
it.
Jeffrey: Big projects like
treasure island built into the
San Francisco bay, Laguardia
airport, the Hoover dam, parts
of yellowstone national park,
and smaller ones -- libraries,
courthouses, even sidewalks and
gutters.
All around the country, hundreds
of thousands of works dating
from the height of the great
depression from the many federal
programs, such as the works
progress administration or wpa,
and public works administration
or pwa that were part of
, part -- that were part of
Franklin Roosevelt's new deal.
In 2005, brechin created what he
called the living new deal, an
online archive documenting
projects throughout the country.
Ay: What we're trying to do as
geographers is to teach people a
kind of landscape literacy.
We're trying to reveal an
invisible landscape that's all
around us and absolutely
indispensable that was created
by my parents' generation.
But we don't see it.
Jeffrey: One better-known meal
deal -- new deal legacy --
artworks, including thousands of
murals, like those at Rincon
annex post office in downtown
San Francisco, started in 1941
by the Russian born painter
Anton refregier.
27 panels in all, one artist's
version of the history of
California from the Spanish
conquest through World War II.
They have faced various threats
over the years, including real
estate development in one of the
most expensive cities in the
world.
Rincon annex was put on the
national register of historic
places in 1979 and has been
preserved ever since.
Gray: I'm interested in the
ethics behind it.
Jeffrey: What do you mean by the
ethics?
Gray: Well, the ethics were
collective.
They were about creating a real
civilization, a society in which
everybody played a role.
You know, that's what democracy
is all about.
Jeffrey: The living new deal,
run by a small staff and
volunteers, has created a
digital database documenting
more than 17,000 sites to date,
including more than 100 in each
state.
Dick: There's no record official
record of what the new deal
agencies did.
And so we're the first ones
doing that.
Jeffrey: Richard walker, also a
geographer, was gray brechin's
professor at uc Berkeley and is
now director of the living new
deal.
Richard -- Jeffrey: You can
drive around and see signs of
the new deal everywhere?
Richard: That's right.
So many of the buildings were
built for the long term.
There's almost always a high
school, a city, city hall, some
structure that's recognizable
from that era.
Jeffrey: One local example,
Oakley high school, with its
sculptures and community theater
that date to the 1940's.
Richard: California, because
there had been a Long Beach
earthquake in 1933, put a huge
emphasis on rebuilding
California schools or expanding
them, making them earthquake
safe and so on.
They hired local architects.
It was very much an interaction
between the federal government
and local government, state
governments.
Jeffrey: Always emphasize, work
for those in need.
The seven acre montclair park in
Oakland was and is a place for
people to bring their children
and be outdoors.
But it also served another
purpose.
Richard: The idea of the new
deal was always to put people to
work, that they thought that
gave them dignity, self-worth,
and it did.
People who wanted that, who were
unemployed.
And here is such a great
example, because you have this
beautiful stonework, which was
done probably by unemployed
Italian American stonemasons who
were still around at that time.
Jeffrey: It's a vision of the
role of government seemingly out
of step with divided American
politics today.
Last year's $1 trillion
infrastructure investment and
jobs act did finally pass, but
after months of infighting.
And given the much larger size
of the economy now, it's
expected to have a much smaller
overall impact than the programs
of the 1930's.
In that sense, the living new
deal involves advocacy as well
as education, and Richard walker
hopes if more people understood
the history of their
communities, another era of
public works investment could
come.
Richard: Our job at the living
new deal is to educate Americans
what the new deal did, not just
as a historical nicety, but
because it's relevant today.
We can only educate and do a
little bit of proselytizing
about, look what's possible.
Look at this hidden
civilization, this lost
civilization that's right under
your nose and think, what can we
do now?
What would I like to see my town
do?
Jeffrey: A lost civilization
that the living new deal aims to
uncover.
For the pbs newshour, I'm
Jeffrey brown in California's
bay area.