Report from Santa Fe; Kathy Flynn

The National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. I'm Lorraine Mills, and welcome to report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is Kathy Flynn, who is the Executive Director of the New Deal Preservation Association, the National New Deal Preservation Association, and the author of many, many books. I'd like to thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Lorraine. It's a delight to do it with you. Well, we're actually here to celebrate the whole nation is celebrating 75 years of the New Deal and all this WPA art.

So I'm going to ask you to tell us what is the New Deal and what does WPA stand for, and just kind of put all this in the historical context before we go into how much this is a part of New Mexico history. Absolutely. The New Deal came out of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, because once he signed on that or signed on that little dotted line and said, yes, I'll be president, in 1933, actually marched the 4th, 1933. Then he started putting in place legislation that would come to pass to save this country from its economic destitution, because this was right after the stock market crash. The banks were closed. People didn't have work. It was a horrendous time in this country. So the Great Depression, this was the beginning of the most painful part of the Great Depression. Absolutely.

And people were, there was no food, there was no money to get. There was no money and the banks weren't open. You think of anything as horrific as you can think of, and that's where we were. And we don't, we're too fat and sassy these days to even comprehend that our country ever had that kind of time. And we're talking about a period of 1933 to 43, just a short 10 years, and yet it turned the country around, and so many things were created during that 10 year time that we're still using today. We still have it, and yet most of us don't know we've got it, or don't take it for granted as what it amounts to, like sewer systems and water systems, and how about social security. That's a nice little thing that a lot of people like every month, but they don't know that it came from Franklin Roosevelt.

The other thing is, if FDIC, the federal deposit is yours, because now that we are indeed experiencing a little economic uncertainty, it's really nice for a citizen to know that their money in an FDIC account is backed by the government, and so that's another really thing. That wasn't there, I'll note, in 1933, right? They would pound on the doors and say, give me my money back, and he wasn't there. So along with these economic kind of sanctions and structure, he also, people had no job, so there were work programs like the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the WPA, what does that stand for? Well, the first part of money was the Works Progress Administration, and that lasted for a year or so, and then they ran out of money for there, and they opened up another pot, and they called it the Works Projects Administration. So it was still the WPA, and those two, the CCC and the WPA, are probably the most well-known of the programs, but there were hundreds of programs.

The Farm Security Administration sent out photographers to take pictures of people to record what we were going through, and in New Mexico, we had a number of those recordings, those photographs done, particularly in trutches, trampus, and down in Pytown. Then there was rural electrification association that came out, and certainly New Mexico benefited from that. But there were art programs and building programs before the WPA, because everything started in 33, the CCC, of which I'm wearing the New Mexico CCC Bolo tie, because I am so proud of that, that started within the first hundred days, March the 31st, and it's amazing to think that government could move so fast, like that did. What kind of numbers of people are we talking about? Well, in New Mexico, there were 54,000 young men between the ages of 17 and 23, and

nationwide, there were 3 million young men in that program, and they did everything from building roads to planting trees, to working on forest fires, stringing telephone wires across Grand Canyon, ah, you name it, they did it. That's a CCC, and then the WPA here, WPA was some of the artists, and what kind of work did they do? All right, in New Mexico, we had 166 artists that I've identified. There's no central list, so we've had to come to that 166 by a hit and miss. There was somebody named Maria Martinez. There was another very young man named Alan Hauser. There was a guy named Down South named Peter Hurd. Now these people were in a dire condition, the same as everybody else, a meal B-Strim.

Bill Lumpkins was one of our Santa Fe artists and architects that got started as a result. All of these people got, quote, started as a result of the Will Schuster was one. He created Will Schuster and Fremont Ellis, William Penn Hallow Henderson, and we had some other women in there, like Jean Clause, Pableta Valarde, who was a Santa Clara Indian. She did nearly 90 paintings for Bandelier, and those are still on exhibit at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture through April 6th, so if people have not seen that collection, they better get up there to Museum Hill because that's coming down and going back to Bandelier, and they do not come out of storage very often. Well, let's look a little bit. You brought some pictures and we're going to try to show them. Show us some of the, these are photographs of some of the artwork.

If you could show us some of them and tell us a little about them. This one is by William Penn Hallow Henderson. It is at the Federal Courthouse in Santa Fe next to the Post Office downtown. This one is called Akima Trail. If you can see, there's Akima up at the top. And this is one of six paintings, very large mural-sized paintings, oil on canvas in that building, and they are all landscape scenes because when Penn Hallow Henderson liked the out of doors and figured it needed to be brought into New Mexico's buildings because there's so much beauty out there that should come in, and so there are six, and this is just one of them. It's beautiful. It's very different, very diverse, yes. So this is again in the era between 1933 and 1943. Now this is Clare Ever and Clayton. This is part of a WPA museum in the Clayton schools.

And everything in this picture is, I was trying to see if there was anything that probably this plant here is not made by the New Deal, but everything else was created in the Clayton schools by the students. And we have chairs with leather backs, which the kids had to tan the hides. We have a copper waste basket and a copper book ins that were made from the old stills that the farmers brought in. And so I think that's maybe one of an earlier recycling program. The rot iron things, paintings by, this one is by an artist from Touse. And this is another Touse artist, Jean Claus. And these were in all of the schools in New Mexico and lots of the institutions also. She did nine different etchings, and this is Regina Tatum Cook.

And right there in the bottom of that frame, you can see a little plaque. It will say WPA slash FAP, federal art program. So it's important to realize that it wasn't just paintings and murals, it was every kind of art. Everything. They even had a mattress factory in that school. And that's in Clayton, New Mexico, one of Ernie Mills's favorite, favorite places. This is a painting of a boy, it's called Boy With Helmet, it's done by Odin Holland Cramer, this little boy was his neighbor, and he used he and his two sisters frequently in paintings. This is at Carey Tingly Hospital in Albuquerque. And there is also another painting with the two little girls on a seesaw, which consisted of a board and an old pale. And this is captures the youth of the time and done very well, it's oil on canvas also. Remember, these are all in the thirties.

And our organization has been very active in restoring all of the ones that need conservation or restoration or preservation. This one is by Emil Bistrum, one of those Tows artists that came to be known as the Transadentalist. And this is uphold the right justice tempered with mercy. And it was in a federal building in Roswell, when that building was torn down, it ended up in the basement of a court building in Albuquerque, everybody thought it was destroyed, but it is now been totally restored, and it is on the fourth floor of the old federal court house in Albuquerque. And Bistrum also did another large mural painting in the Department of Justice, and it is called Justice for Women and Children. And he did that as part of the New Deal. All right, we've got one more that we're going to look at.

Thank you so much. Oh, that's lovely. This is Pickery's Pueblo. It is a pastel by Helmeth Nomer. And it resides in our own taxation and revenue department, along with eight other pastel paintings that he did. This is one of the public's favorite, I think. The colors are so beautiful, but pastels, which he did exclusively, he's about the only one who did any of the pastels during that time period. Well, it is beautiful, and we so appreciate the citizens of New Mexico that you and the other members of the preservation group have worked so hard to preserve these. But now let's look at what's coming up. This is a 75th anniversary. Oh, yes. There's so much coming up. And so let's talk about, we want our people to understand what a big deal is, and how many events you have planned all over the state. Well, let's start with the kickoff, which is this Monday. Monday at two o'clock in the Rotunda, March 31st, which is the day that Roosevelt signed

that CCC, and also the banking, saving the banks. So at two o'clock, we have Franklin Roosevelt's granddaughter and Elizabeth Roosevelt, who lives in Chicago, who's coming out for this event, and she'll be our keynote speaker. So she's the granddaughter of Illinois and Franklin? Yes, and she works for Boeing. And she has been here once before and helped us with another project and was delighted to come back, and we're even more delighted to have her back. And also, we're going to have Richard Merrill, who is from Colorado Springs, and he does a Chautauqua presentation of Franklin Roosevelt. So you know, I, in chess, say something about what, in fact, we're going to have FDR and his granddaughter here on March 31st, so everybody should come and see them.

Merrill does a very fine job of portraying Roosevelt. And so it'll be interesting to have them both here to help us kick off the 75th in New Mexico. We kicked it off in Washington, D.C., two weeks ago, and did that with the Library of Congress and the National Archives. The other thing that we're doing in all these kickoffs around the country is honoring people that were in one of the New Deal programs, or maybe more than one, they could only be in one at a time, though. And so we are hopeful that anyone listening and watching us today, if they were in the CCC, or the WPA, or the NYA, that's a program for the younger youth that were primarily in high school in junior high, or were involved with the creation of the REA, or the FSA. Any of these programs, we would love to have them come on Monday.

We'd love to know about it ahead of time because we plan on doing some special commemoration, so we kind of need their names, and they could reach us at 4733985. But we want to honor the people that were in the New Deal, and we want to also honor people who have done things to keep the legacy alive. And there have been books written, there have been documentaries done, and so we want to honor those people too. Well, I wanted to speak new books, and you have written several books, and so I just want to quickly go through them because I think when people realize what a treasure trove New Mexico has. Oh, yeah. This will do not now. This one is called Treasures of New Mexico Trails, and what's this up? Discover New Deal Art and Architecture. And this is kind of like your AAA book, you can put it in the car, and it will take you around to 43 towns and tell you where to go to see the art and the buildings. And then there's some really juicy biographies on all the artists in the back.

Good. And here's another one called A More Abundant Life. New Deal Artist and Public Art in New Mexico. This is done by Jacqueline Hofer, but I did help her with this book, provided our organization provided the photographs. And this is your coffee table book to compliment this one that will take you there, and if you can't get there, you can look at them here. Now, hot off the fridge. Hot off the press. Yes. Tell us about that. This is my new book, The New Deal, a 75th anniversary celebration. And Richard Polese helped me with that, and I'm very appreciative of that. And the following is by Anna L. Nore Roosevelt. The grand manager. Yeah. Right. And so I'm very excited about it. It's a very colorful book. It touches some of the major activities, the different programs, including the social security and everything.

But it has lots of photographs and pictures in there. So someone watching or listening to this program might never have thought of this treasure trove of this art that's here. So if someone were just to even do some day trips, where is the biggest concentration? What would be Clayton is the place to portal us? Absolutely. There's some beautiful things in the university in Portalus. There's also one in the post office, which is a new deal building. New deal, we say, is an umbrella, because there were all these programs. Most people just say, oh, the WPA are the CCC. But the new deal covers the waterfront. And that courthouse in Portalus, the courthouse in Tukum Carey, the courthouse in Raton, the courthouse in Karlsbad, the courthouse in Gallup. All of these were built as part of the new deal. And there's more. There are federal buildings. There are town halls.

There are libraries, but post offices all over the state, too. And those courthouses, a lot of them, particularly the ones on the east side, look like the courthouses on the west side of Texas. So I think those feds just did their little cookie cutter thing and sent them around the country, but some have murals in them and some don't. The other thing that's significant about each one of them is that they have ball reliefs on the outside, and generally the figures in the ball reliefs depict something about that particular county. So you need to look up and see what's on your courthouse. Or go into your post office and look up over the postmaster doer. And if it was made in 33 to 43, you can bet there's a mural there. And you don't go to look for fine art in any of these buildings normally. You go to get your stamps or mail your mail, but look up, look up and see what's there. There are a number of post offices in New Mexico.

I think the one that beats all of the post offices that I know about is in Anadarka, Oklahoma, there are 12 murals in that lobby, but we have a lot in New Mexico. Now the courthouses, I know the Santa Fe Federal Courthouse has murals. Yes, and it has six. The county courthouse of Santa Fe is also a new deal building. It has murals in it, but those were done more recently. And the post office downtown has two large murals in it. They were not WPA or New Deal, but they were done by Gerald Cassidy and his wife who was the head of the Federal Writers Program, which was another one of those programs we had. Always said that he gave his life for the WPA, because when he was trying to paint a very large mural, which was going to go in St. Francis Auditorium, he kept getting sick, and it turned out that he had rented a warehouse to do this big, immense painting

that was poorly ventilated. And in reality, the man died from carbon monoxide poisoning trying to do a new deal mural. And so those two are there in the courthouse, I mean in the post office downtown in Santa Fe, are his style, his type of work, and typical of what he would have probably done if he could have. You're your own personal favorite since you have archived and photographed, but what one just makes your heart sing? Well, I guess the one that I've known the longest in Portalis and was never typical of everybody. I never noticed that, well, I noticed them, but I didn't know anything about them. There are some very large murals in the administration building at Eastern New Mexico University. And when I got started doing the blue books for the Secretary of State's office, that popped into my head as a picture that I'd like to put in the blue book as a divider page.

And I wondered, where did that come from? How did that get there? Who did that? You know, well, I started researching it and found out that it was done by Lloyd Moilin, a Santa Fe artist, and it was, there was money from the federal government to pay him, but there was no money for paint. And so somebody, and I've never been able to find out who I'd love to find out who donated $160 to do this huge mural all over tooth, sides up a stairwell, and down the walls. And they provided that 160 on the basis that they got to choose the subject matter and that the artist was not allowed to paint on Sunday. Well, being a preacher's daughter from Portalis, I know that some people were already some pretty strict down there, fortunately my father wasn't, but anyway. He chose the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes, and I love to tell the story that, guess what? He did paint on Sunday, and the preachers came early in the week to chastise him about

it, and that man was sharp and fast with his tongue as well as his hand, because he said, what better day to paint the Lord's Word than on the Lord's Day? Now he also painted large murals in the Gallup Courthouse, and at Highlands University, and those are immense in both places. So people should go and see those if nothing else. And for our Albuquerque listeners and viewers, what is there, you know, if they don't want to go on a day trip and have wonderful adventures looking for WPA art projects, what can they do close to home in Albuquerque? All right, there is the Carri Tingly Hospital has summed down the hallways. I personally brought all that art work up, and I understand that one of the big, the one large statue that also came up from when the hospital was in Hot Springs, and that was a new deal project also done by Bill Lumpkins. It is now over in the new Bill Richardson and Bill and Barbara Richardson children's wing

at UNMH, but there are two large paintings by Gesella Lefler that are very unusual. And one of them has in the foreground a nativity scene. And one of a man came back to the hospital one day and asked to look for the baby Jesus painting. And they said, we don't have any religious paintings here in this state hospital. And he said, you better because when I was a little boy, I rolled up to and talked to the baby Jesus in my wheelchair because I was so lonely and I heard so badly, I was homesick for my parents. And I talked to the baby Jesus and he kept me going. And that was done by Gesella Lefler and the baby Jesus is still there and they're wonderful paintings. There is a wonderful show right now at the Museum of Fine Arts at UNM. And that includes paintings by Raymond Johnson and Willard Nash.

Those were done 75 years ago and hung together facing one another six of each massive pieces. And then they were taken down. And this is the first time in 70 years that they have hung together again. There are 60 pieces in that show, including Farm Security Administration, photographs, those big things, Patrick Sr. Borella Carvings. There's something of everything so people should go check out that show. The Albuquerque Museum has some things that belong to the Albuquerque High School, the old high school which has now been renovated and started again. That was a new deal project. Unfortunately, the Albuquerque little theater, which was, I believe, the first building that was built in Albuquerque by the new deal programs, it had a fresco on the front of it. But when they decided to extend the lobby out, that was just ripped out, blasted out, they hoped to redo that again in the future in another wing, which the building was designed

by John Gommi. There's Roosevelt Park in Albuquerque, Carrie Tingley Beach is another one of the new deal activities or places in Albuquerque. There's lots of things there. And the Federal Courthouse, we showed you a picture of that. There's another painting in the first floor on that same old Federal Courthouse building. So there's two for one there if you get into that building. So the kickoff of the 75th year anniversary will be Monday, this coming Monday, March 31 at 2 o'clock in the Capitol, Ritunda. And we have invited the CCC, WPA, NYA people that we know, and they will be honored. We would like to find more if we can. But then after that, the following week, we have a symposium at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

And it is going to be focused on what do the Native Americans do in the new deal? And I assure you, we had a lot of Native Americans in New Mexico that worked on the projects. And we've got six speakers coming in, one from Sitka, Alaska, to talk about CCC Totem pole art. And we've got a woman coming from England to talk about Southwest Native American New Deal artist. All of these people have gotten their PhDs on the New Deal art program. It's a very exciting time in this 75th year. We've got someone coming from Ohio and other person coming from Oklahoma. And we've got some from New Mexico also. So that is Museum of Indian Arts and Culture all day, Saturday, and afternoon, Sunday. And some students at the Indian School have done a little documentary for us showing the art and the buildings at the Indian School here in Santa Fe and Bandilear.

And we're going to expose that for them, for having their unveiling of their documentary. Well, it's so much to look forward to. And those of you who cannot make it to any of those, I want you to look at Kathy's book. Treasures on New Mexico trails, you can just put this in your car and drive around and see where all the sights are. This is one of those six. That is the old Santa Fe trail. That's one of the six that are in the Federal Courthouse in Santa Fe by the post office. And people tell me they like to travel around and see these things. They wouldn't notice them otherwise. Well, I'm grateful that you travel to our studio today. And that you are able to tell us all these marvelous things. Our guest today is Kathy Flynn, who is the executive director of the National New Deal Preservation Association. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. Oh, it was a joy. Any time to do with you. Thank you. And I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank you for being with us today on Report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week.

Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by Grant Strong, the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico.