California: Living with the New Deal

Robin Einhorn
History
UC Berkeley

Paul Groth
Geography
UC Berkeley

This project sought to deepen our understanding of FDR’s New Deal in California (one of its principal beneficiaries). Building on the Living New Deal, a research effort based in UC Berkeley’s Geography Department, the project revealed the forgotten world of New Deal landscapes to today’s Californians. It helped the public appreciate a rich legacy of art, architecture and public works– most of which we are still living with today. The research was used to expand the archive of California New Deal sites, a trove of photographs, documents and maps that the general public can explore freely through an interactive map. More broadly, the Living New Deal website educates the public to the contemporary relevance of the New Deal as a model of positive government investing in the collective good. This grant also funded public salons to pursue the idea of a New Deal museum.