Give a man a dole, and you save his body and destroy his spirit.
Give him a job and you save both body and spirit.
Harry Hopkins, WPA Administrator
Debates on issues like climate change, migration, and certainly the current COVID-19 pandemic suggest a divide on the merits of making sacrifices today for a better tomorrow. This is not unprecedented. The early years of the Great Depression saw one in four Americans without work and economic activity nearly halved. In its midst of this calamity, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) created under the Roosevelt administration hired more than 8.5 million people to work on 1.4 million projects. Nearly a century later, over 15,000 sites nationwide, and over 300 in New Mexico alone, remain and many still operate, including schools, government facilities, parks, and murals.
These images comprise the early stage of a documentary survey of selected extant and abandoned WPA sites in my home state of New Mexico and in other parts of the United States. The intent of this project is to illustrate at least two benefits, namely, near-term job creation that helped people back then, and the longer-term transformation of place evident today.
Roosevelt County Courthouse, Portales, New Mexico, July 19, 2020
Post Office, Downers Grove, Illinois, September 18, 2020
Will Rogers High School, Tulsa, Oklahoma, September 20, 2020
Dexter School Gymnasium, Dexter, Missouri, 2020
Post Office, Portales, New Mexico, July 19, 2020
Quarai Mission Structure, Mountainair, New Mexico, May 9, 2019
City Park Band Shell, Twin Falls, Idaho, June 26, 2021
Arco City Building, Arco, Idaho, June 26, 2021
Garwood Schoolhouse, Garwood, Missouri, September 19, 2020
School, Claunch, New Mexico, June 23, 2020
School Gymnasium, St. Vrain, New Mexico, March 24, 2019
Fort Lewis College, Old Fort Lewis Campus, Hesperus, Colorado, June 29, 2021
Cemetery Opening, Fort Sumner, New Mexico, 2020
Public Library, Clayton, New Mexico, September 21, 2020
Post Office, Hollywood, California, May 9, 2019
Montezuma County Courthouse, Cortez, Colorado, June 18, 2021
Wood Gormley Elementary School, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 21, 2020
Smiley Junior High School (former), Durango, Colorado, June 29, 2021
Aztec Museum, Aztec, New Mexico, June 29, 2021
City Hall, Salina, Utah, June 28, 2021
Marshall Junior High School, Clovis, New Mexico, March 24, 2019
Albuquerque Little Theatre, Albuquerque, New Mexico, March 22, 2019
