The Living New Deal

The Living New Deal is a non-profit organization that exists to document all of the public works that were created by various New Deal programs from 1933-43. Several professors at the University of California-Berkeley began this project in 2005 by gathering information on New Deal public works projects in California. In 2010, they expanded and began documenting projects nationally. The New Deal refers to a wide range of economic programs that President Franklin Roosevelt's administration enacted in response to the Great Depression. 

The Living New Deal's website contains a wealth of information and resources. My favorite tool is the map. You can use navigation tools in the map to either zoom in or search for a specific location in the United States and see New Deal public works projects in the area. 

Map from the Living New Deal website.
Each red dot represents a public works project built by a New Deal program between 1933-43. 

Close up view of Stephenville and surrounding towns reveals several New Deal projects in the area.  

This map reveals that there are two buildings in Stephenville that were built by New Deal programs. One is the current Public Library and former post office building located at 174 N. Columbia Street. It was funded by the US Treasury Department and completed in 1935.

Current Stephenville Public Library and former post office.
The building was a New Deal public works project completed in 1935.
Michael Barera [CC BY-SA 4.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), from Wikimedia Commons.

The other is the Recreation Hall located at 378 W. Long Street. It was built the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and completed in 1938. Today it houses the offices of the Stephenville's Parks and Recreation Department.

Recreation Hall in Stephenville. Built by the WPA in 1938.
Joshua Wallace - Photographer & Copyright Holder, 2018. 

If you want to learn more about the New Deal, the Dick Smith library has a large collection of items on the subject. Such as these titles:

Digital Film:
A Chaos of Experimentation

Books & eBooks:
A Concise History of the New Deal by Jason Scott Smith
The Crash of '29 and the New Deal by Bruce Glassman
Designing a New America: The Origins of New Deal Planning, 1890-1943 by Patrick D. Reagan

The Great Depression & the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction by Eric Rauchway

Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement by Neil M. Maher 

The New Deal by David E. Hamilton
The New Deal: America's Response to the Great Depression by Ronald Edsforth
The New Deal Art Projects: An Anthology of Memoirs by Francis V. O'Connor
The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933-40 by Anthony J. Badger

Contact us at 254-968-9249 or reference@tarleton.edu if you have any questions about library resources on the New Deal or any other topic.

Summer Reading Recommendations - Two from Tracy Holtman

A couple months ago, the Library posted a video on our YouTube Channel with staff recommendations for summer reading.  Here's the "why?" behind some of those recommendations, as well as other books that did not make it into the video.  All are available as e-books in our OverDrive collection.

Tracy Holtman, our Assistant Director for Collections Management, had two suggestions.

"What I liked about The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend [by Katarina Bivald] was that it was different from what I normally read.   Two women correspond sending book recommendations.  However when the woman from Sweden visits, her pen-pal has passed away.  She stays in the friendly small town, and opens a book store, giving book recommendations to everyone.

I enjoyed revisiting all the books mentioned. (It was nice to know I had read several!!)  It was just a good sweet book – small town America."

Tracy also recommends the Sullivan’s Crossing series, set in rural Colorado, because "It was by an author I love [Robyn Carr], with a family storyline.    I like family stories – this one [What We Find, first in the series] is about a daughter and her aging father.   (And of course some romance too.)   Just a good, short, fun read."

We also have the next two books in the series in OverDrive:  Any Day Now, and The Family Gathering.

Independence Day

On July 4th we celebrate Independence Day. On this day in 1776 the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, which formally declared that the United States was free of any connection to Great Britain. However, actual independence was not achieved until the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

On June 10th, 1776 the Continental Congress designated the Committee of Five to write a declaration of independence.  The five men on the committee were: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The committee chose Thomas Jefferson to be the author of the document, and the other members of the committee assisted with editing and revisions. The committee approved the final draft on June 28th, and then submitted it to the Congress. The Congress adopted the declaration on July 4th.

1791 portrait of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Third President of the United States and primary author of the Declaration of Independence.
 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

The library has a lot of resources for learning more about the Declaration of Independence. Such as these titles:

American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier 

The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence by Jack N. Rakove

Collected Works of Roger Sherman by Roger Sherman

The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text as Shown in Facsimiles of Various Drafts by its Author, Thomas Jefferson by Julian P. Boyd
The Declaration of Independence: A Global History by David Armitage
The Declaration of Independence: Its History by John H. Hazelton
The Declaration of Independence of the United States in Ten Languages by United States
Greatness to Spare: The Heroic Sacrifices of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence by T. R. Fehrenbach
Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence by Benson John Lossing
Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality by Danielle S. Allen

If you have any questions about library resources then please contact us at reference@tarleton.edu or 254-968-9249.