The Living New Deal

The Living New Deal is a research project and online public archive documenting the scope and impact of the New Deal on Americans’ lives and landscape. The New Deal was a constellation of economic stimulus policies and social programs enacted to lift America out of the Great Depression, one that touched every state, city, town, and rural area in the country, yet there is no national record of what the New Deal built, only bits and pieces found in local and national archives, published sources, and occasional markers. This represents an enormous gap in the historic record and a collective failure of memory.  Our goal is to uncover every New Deal public works site in all fifty states and to build a public archive of photographs, documents, films, and stories from this pivotal period so that we may preserve the legacy of this era of civic mindedness and social justice.