Americans Encounter the New Deal

Americans in all walks of life encountered New Deal measures in their daily lives. In 1938 and 1939, the Federal Writers Project, a part of the WPA, interviewed thousands of ordinary citizens throughout the nation, and many expressed their opinions about the New Deal. A sample of their views of the depression, Franklin Roosevelt, the WPA, and the CIO, as well as of political and economic power, can be found in the following excerpts from three interviews.

DOCUMENT 1

Charles Fusco, On the Value of Relief Work during the Depression, December 6, 1938

An Italian American machinist in a munitions plant in Hampden, Connecticut, explained the value of the relief work provided by the WPA.

I can get a job today even if we got a depression. I don’t mean that I wasn’t on relief when things got tough because there was a time when everything was shut down and I had to get on relief for a job. It isn’t so long ago I was working on WPA. Believe me it was a big help. But it wasn’t the kind of a job I should have had because this town is Republican and I am a Republican and I was a good worker for the party—making voters and helping a lot of people out. . . . Getting jobs for them. When it came my turn that I needed help the politicians told me that I had to go on relief—well, when I did I was handed a shovel and pick. . . . Roosevelt is a damn good man. . . . You know there shouldn’t be a depression in this country . . . the Democrats are in power and the Republicans won’t let loose with the money. Well I say that the money men started this thing and I believe the government should make laws to force these capitalists to bring back prosperity. They can do it if they wanted to.

Source: Interview with Charles Fusco. Manuscript. U.S. Works Progress Administration, Federal Writers Project. From Library of Congress, Folklore Project, Life Histories, 1936–39, GIF. http://www.loc.gov/resource/wpalh0.09030115/seq-1#seq-1 (accessed December 3, 2013).

DOCUMENT 2

Myron Buxton, The Benefits of WPA Projects, July 25, 1939

A native-born draftsman and assistant to an engineer working on WPA building projects in Newburyport, Massachusetts, illuminated the WPA’s benefits to the community and to the individual workers.

One reason people here don’t like WPA is because they don’t understand it’s not all bums and drunks and aliens! Nobody ever explains to them that they’d never have had the new High School they’re so goddam proud of if it hadn’t been for WPA. They don’t stop to figure that new brick sidewalks wouldn’t be there, the shade trees wouldn’t be all dressed up to look at along High Street and all around town, if it weren’t for WPA projects. To most in this town, and I guess it’s not much different in this, than any other New England place, WPA’s just a racket, set up to give a bunch of loafers and drunks steady pay to indulge in their vices! They don’t stop to consider that on WPA are men and women who have traveled places and seen things, been educated and found their jobs folded up and nothing to replace them with. . . . The working guy in this country never had such a swell chance to get a toe-hold as he’s had in the last four years! The louder the Republicans yell, the more of a toe-hold you can figure the ordinary guy’s got!

Source: Seymour D. Buck. Interview with Myron Buxton. Manuscript. U.S. Works Progress Administration, Federal Writers Project. From Library of Congress, Folklore Project, Life Histories, 1936–39, GIF. http://www.loc.gov/resource/wpalh1.14030415/#seq-1 (accessed December 3, 2013).

DOCUMENT 3

Jim Cole, Overcoming Racism in the Unions, May 18, 1939

An African American packinghouse worker near Chicago, Illinois, explained how the CIO united workers from different racial and ethnic backgrounds when other unions turned them away.

I’m working in the Beef Kill section. Butcher on the chain. Been in the place twenty years, I believe. You got to have a certain amount of skill to do the job I’m doing. Long ago, I wanted to join the AFL union, the Amalgamated Butchers and Meat Cutters, they called it and wouldn’t take me. Wouldn’t let me in the union. Never said it to my face, but reason of it was plain. Negro. That’s it. Just didn’t want a Negro man to have what he should. That’s wrong. You know that’s wrong. Long about 1937 the CIO come. Well, I tell you, we Negroes was glad to see it come. Well, you know, sometimes the bosses, or either the company stooges try to keep the white boys from joining the union. They say, “you don’t want to belong to a black man’s organization. That’s all the CIO is.” Don’t fool nobody, but they got to lie, spread lyin’ words around. There’s a many different people, talkin’ different speech, can’t understand English very well, we have to have us union interpreters for lots of our members, but that don’t make no mind, they all friends in the union, even if they can’t say nothin’ except “Brother,” an’ shake hands. Well, my own local, we elected our officers and it’s the same all over. We try to get every people represented. President of the local, he’s Negro. First V[ice] President, he’s Polish. Second V. President, he’s Irish. Other officers, Scotchman, Lithuanian, Negro, German. . . . I don’t care if the union don’t do another lick of work raisin’ our pay, or settling grievances about anything, I’ll always believe they done the greatest thing in the world gettin’ everybody who works in the yards together, and breakin’ up the hate and bad feelings that used to be held against the Negro.

Source: Betty Burke. Interview with Jim Cole. Manuscript. U.S. Works Progress Administration, Federal Writers Project. From Library of Congress, Folklore Project, Life Histories, 1936–39, GIF. http://www.loc.gov/resource/wpalh0.07050602/seq-1#seq-1 (accessed December 3, 2013).

Questions for Analysis

Analyze the Evidence: What did Fusco, Buxton, and Cole see as successes and shortcomings of the New Deal? According to these men, how did New Deal programs influence the lives of ordinary American citizens?

Consider the Context: Who did these men identify as opponents of New Deal measures, and why?

Recognize Viewpoints: What attitudes did these men believe other Americans had about the WPA, the CIO, and the New Deal in general?