Stateline 1002 Master Document

BOOTH

OF THE MYRIAD ALPHABET-SOUP AGENCIES CREATED PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT'S "NEW DEAL" TO SPEED RECOVERY FROM THE GREAT DEPRESSION, NONE IS BETTER KNOWN THAN THE  W-P-A.

THE WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION, OVER ITS EIGHT YEAR HISTORY, EMPLOYED MORE THAN EIGHT AND A HALF MILLION AMERICANS ON ONE POINT FOUR MILLION PROJECTS, AND SPENT 11 BILLION DOLLARS IN THE PROCESS.

THE W-P-A LEFT IT'S MARK ON ROADS, BRIDGES, PARKS, AIRPORTS, AND 125-THOUSAND PUBLIC BUILDINGS, MANY OF THEM CONSTRUCTED IN A DISTINCTIVE ARCHITECTURAL STYLE UTILIZING ROUGH LOCAL STONE.

BUT IN OKLAHOMA AND OTHER STATES, IT'S LEFT A CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC LEGACY AS WELL.

ON THIS STATELINE HISTORY SPECIAL WE LEARN THE W-P-A WAS MORE THAN BUILDINGS.

TRT

Ask someone about the WPA in Oklahoma and they'll probably tell you about one of the hundreds of highways it built. Every county in the state had dozens of WPA projects. It built stadiums and libraries, parks and bridges, dams and swimming pools. Of the 126 National Guard armories built by the WPA nationwide, 51 are in Oklahoma.

Marjorie Barton

00:27:55        S-103

"One thing Oklahoma holds the record for, and we want people to know that, is that WPA built 825 schools in Oklahoma. Which is the most of any state in the U.S."

But few people know the WPA also put artists, writers, actors and musicians to work creating a legacy every bit as concrete as those set in mortar and stone.

Dr. Terri Baker

2:59:15         S-106

"We have art works that are valuable, that were created during those times. We have interviews and history books that were produced during those times. Those are valuable to people."

The WPA provided funding, but allowed communities to choose the projects. In some towns half the people were out of work. In order to feed the most people per pay check the WPA usually hired the head of a household.

Marjorie Barton

00:17:30        S-103

"When the WPA was set up it was meant to help the families where they lived. / Generally those people were past thirty."

It started with a song. Oklahoma City had a symphony orchestra in the 1920's, but it broke up after a few years.

Joel Levine

4:18:06         S-106

"If you were an orchestral musician and you wanted to play in a symphony orchestra - there wasn't all that much for you to do. There would have been - and we have to remember this was the radio era - there would have been small radio ensembles."

Joel Levine

4:19:00         S-106

"But the full time job of playing in a professional orchestra, that was nonexistent until the WPA came along here."

During the six years the city was without an orchestra the WPA formed the Federal Music Project and appointed Dean Richardson to run the new Federal Symphony Orchestra.

Joel Levine

4:22:50:10      S-106

"It took some time to get it up and running, and during that time - and we're talking about 1937 - they were busy auditioning musicians."

Joel Levine

4:19:48:20      S-106

"And they started it in Tulsa. That's where they first planted the seeds of a symphony orchestra. The WPA Federal Symphony Orchestra started in Tulsa."

Many people viewed the WPA as welfare, and Tulsa oilmen didn't want what they called "Roosevelt Fiddlers" playing in their town.

Joel Levine

4:22:12:16      S-106

"It wasn't that they didn't want an orchestra in Tulsa, but the citizens in charge decided they didn't want a Federal orchestra. / So they basically kicked it out."

Joel Levine

4:22:36:18      S-106

"Richardson moved it down the highway to Oklahoma City and then Tulsa began its own symphony orchestra, so the Tulsa symphony started immediately after the WPA orchestra left and came across the highway here."

Joel Levine

4:23:23:10      S-106

"But they were missing a Bassoon. And apparently in this neck of the woods, finding a bassoon was a really hard thing. So, they plucked out of Oklahoma City University - and I think she was 17 or 18 years old - Elizabeth and she became Elizabeth Johnson, Betty Johnson, who has been known and is still known by many, many people here because Betty Johnson didn't retire from playing until 1992."

Joel Levine

4:25:30:07      S-106

"The orchestra from its first days was out and about playing as many concerts as they could. Because the nature of taking the Federal money meant that they were going to serve the state. It was going to be a state orchestra to the extent that they could get out and about."

Joel Levine

4:25:45:27      S-106

"So what they did was, they put out the word all over the state, that this was a wonderful thing, a symphony orchestra and it would be a great thing to have it come to your town and please invite us."

Joel Levine

4:33:07:08      S-106

"So, if they went to Anadarko or Claremore, whatever, the local paper would write a review. And it was almost, 'the circus is coming to town! Come hear this fabulous, federal orchestra. Come see for yourself these amazing musicians."

Joel Levine

4:31:14:12      S-106

"They were playing in high school auditoriums, typically. If you go to a small, rural community in any state, the biggest auditorium in town is going to be the high school. / But people were so thrilled to have the orchestra that they didn't really care."

Musicians would spend hours on dusty roads playing two and three concerts a day in every corner of the state.

Joel Levine

4:26:17:03      S-106

"They would basically bus the orchestra to whatever town was hosting and drop them off. And they would make their way through the town and find the best place to eat and the best place to hang out and that kind of thing."

Joel Levine

4:34:49:17      S-106

"They played their first concerts here in town in what was called at the time, the Shrine Auditorium. And we know that know as a very different building. It transformed itself into the Journal Record Building. And now, of course, it houses the Memorial Museum."

Joel Levine

4:37:11:24      S-106

"Its second year, the Orchestra moved across, a couple of blocks, and the Civic Center became its home, the Municipal Auditorium."

The Federal Orchestra changed its name several times until its breakup in 1988...the federal funding ended after three years.

Joel Levine

4:40:44:04      S-106

"The WPA had a limited purse string on it. The federal government was not going to fund the orchestra forever. So within three years or so . . . they had to get off the Federal dole. They were told from the beginning, 'The federal government will start this project, and you're going to have to then get local support.' "

Joel Levine

4:52:31:15      S-106

"By the time the musicians came back from the war, it was funded by local citizens."

In western Oklahoma the WPA was busy planting shelter belts...rows of trees to keep the soil from blowing away. At the same time Doctor Grant Foreman of the State Historical Society was putting writers to work preserving the stories of the people who pioneered Territorial Oklahoma.

Dr. Terri Baker

2:16:21         S-106

"Grant Foreman just selected 80 to a hundred writers. / There were relief rolls.  A lot of them were taken directly from the relief rolls."

Marjorie Barton

00:41:20        S-103

"A lot of teachers and...And former office people, clerical people, were usually the ones hired in the writers section. The writer's project section, we think why would teachers be unemployed?  Well there was a shift in population in the 1930's there were not as many children in school. Plus a lot of schools shut down because they did not have the money to pay.

Dr. Terri Baker

2:35:24         S-106

"They paid them the going rates for the 1930's, barely a living wage....They were professionals and I think that having a job and having a professional task to do was probably as important as the pay they got."

Marjorie Barton

00:42:20        S-103

"They went to where the person lived and had a list of questions to ask them. / Most of those stories would have been lost had they not been recorded."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:21:07         S-106

"They were instructed to find people who would remember the pioneer experience.  They needed elderly people.  We have interviews in our book from people who were 100 years old."

Marjorie Barton

00:38:00        S-103

"Questionnaires were sent out to people maybe in the thousands. / And interviewed as many people as they could. Including ex-slaves.  See in the 1930's we still had people who were born as slaves. Native Americans, and other Pioneers were interviewed."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:24:39         S-106

"Some stories were of incredible bravery, I don't know if they though of it as bravery. One woman...she had two or three children under five, and she and her husband are going to Texas. Her Husband has a heart attack crossing the Red River. The horses founder in the quick sand."

One of the ponies fell under the wagon tongue and could not get up; so I called to my husband who was pushing behind. I saw at once that something was wrong with him. He climbed into the wagon and fell backward on the bed. There I was miles from a human being, only the babies in the wagon, and I thought my husband might be dying and one of the horses down and could not get up. Kissika Wolf

Dr. Terri Baker

2:24:39         S-106

"This woman takes care of her children revives her husband gets the horses up out of the quick sand gets back on the bank hires a guide and then goes on into Texas into the journey."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:41:35         S-106

"There were a number of American Indians who were interviewed for the Indian Pioneer Papers. They told stories that indicated a commonality of experience."

Marjorie Barton

00:44:48        S-103

"You have to remember in the 1930's some of these people were remembering things clear back to the Civil War."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:23:07         S-106

"One story I...some of them were kind of funny. / So a man and a friend of his were bringing liquor back illegally from Arkansas. They also had corn that they were going to use to feed their hogs. As they were coming back from Arkansas to Eastern Oklahoma. They thought they saw someone in the distance on a horse. Believing it to be a law (agencies) the "laws" as they called them...they emptied the liquor onto the corn. It was absorbed by the corn. So by the time the guy got there, there was no liquor. It was all in the corn.  They drove on home in their wagon pressed the liquor out of the corn and feed the corn to the hogs. The hogs got drunk, and we refer to that as the drunk hog story."

Marjorie Barton

00:44:44        S-103

"I think it is the same reason we record any of history. We feel those stories need to be told."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:32:19         S-106

"There are 112 volumes; one set is at the Oklahoma Historical Society.  The other is at OU Western History Collection."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:05:31 S-106

"They are not taking the images of people who were kings of industry, or bankers. / They were taking people who owned the fields or worked in the fields. Women who kept house and raised the children. I think that a part of it is legacy."

As soon as WPA crews finished a new building WPA artists were hard at work inside. Vanessa Jennings is the granddaughter of Stephen Mopope, one artist in a group known as the Kiowa five.

Vanessa Jennings

3:20:30         S-101

"They all came together as young students at the Indian mission at St. Patrick's.  They had art supplies that were made available to them. I think most of the children had a talent for art, but this group...they seemed to live and breathe art."

Their work was widely distributed and some of it fell into the hands of head of the art department at O-U.

Vanessa Jennings

3:20:00         S-101

"Dr. Jacobson didn't want to force the modern world's idea of what art is.  He allowed them to pursue and promote their style of Kiowa traditional art."

Through Jacobson's influence Steven Mopope, Spencer Asah and James Auchiah were hired by the WPA to paint murals in public buildings across the state. Two are in Seminary Hall at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah.

Dr. Terri Baker

2:14:40         S-106

"When you walk up to this building from the outside it is rather imposing. But when you walk in you know that there is an Indian presence here."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:11:15         S-106

"The arts are extremely important they feed people's memories and they nurture our spirits. / I think the Buffalo Hunt is a part of that nostalgia."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:51:58         S-106

"...on the second floor, that painting is about the dance.  By the 1930's Indian dances were being performed all over Oklahoma."

Other murals are in Muscogee, Oklahoma City and the post office in Anadarko.

Vanessa Jennings

3:25:29         S-101

"He was really proud of those. And he really did, he considered himself a wall muralist, a muralist. / Mind you this is before the age of the slide projector. Where you can easily project an image up on the wall and then pencil it in. This is all his excellent eye hand co-ordination. He had a really strong knowledge of body movements. He had a strong knowledge of the traditions of the Kiowa people."

Jennings used to sit and listen to her grandfather's stories of painting at the post office.

Vanessa Jennings

3:26:29         S-101

"He used to paint during the day, but he had so many of his elders would sit on the floor, and they would watch him.  There were some women elders who were, you know what you shouldn't be putting that women in there working on that buffalo hide. You know it smells. Nobody would ever set up a buffalo hide that close to a camp. So grandpa started working at night. So it just went a whole lot easier for him he said."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:38:51         S-106

"There aren't a whole lot of these murals left in public buildings, as the post offices and court houses get remodeled or moved sometimes those artworks are lost."

Dr. Terri Baker

2:14:00         S-106

"Every day the students go by and they see that history. And at the same time these students are taking classes and Oklahoma history is right there on the walls for them to look at. I think that is what the legacy is. People continued to be nurtured by these things. I think we need to know who we are. We need to know who we are."

Vanessa Jennings

3:35:14         S-101

"With the WPA I know with my grandfather it was a godsend it was an opportunity to share with the world what was important to him and it was his world of what was the most beautiful and the most special that the Kiowa's had to offer. It was their history their tradition, their signing. It was their stories. The WPA provided a chance for the world to see the love between a Kiowa grandfather with his grandson, or the tenderness of an old Kiowa grandmother as she sings and hold her favorite grandchild. You can see the first love blossoming between a man and a women through his courtship scenes. Those are all things; love, death, family, God, its all there. It is recorded forever."

Most of the WPA buildings are mute reminders of the emotional distress and physical pain suffered by Oklahomans, but few speak loud and clear to give hope and comfort. The Holy City of the Wichita's sits at the base of Mt. Scott near Medicine Park.

Jim McCarthy

1:08:47         S-103

"It got started way back in 1926; Reverend Wallock was a pastor of a church in downtown Lawton. On Easter eve he came out to the Medicine Park area with a few of his church members and also his Sunday class from Medicine Park. And held a Sunrise service on top of one of the peaks in the Medicine park area. That was the first performance so to speak. That continued until this place, the actual Holy City was built. The Service was moved here. This was built by the way by the WPA. A grant was authorized for about ninety-four thousand dollars. President Roosevelt authorized a use lease of one hundred and sixty acres right here at the base of Mount Roosevelt, and the WPA came out and constructed all these natural stone buildings that you have seen around here today. In 1935 this area was dedicated and had their first pageant here that year.''

Jim McCarthy

1:10:20         S-103

"Of course they've got this beautiful hill over here where the spectators sit. I am told that the first year it was held there were eighty-two thousand spectators on the hill. And if you look at that hill it makes you wonder they must have acted like they liked each other a lot cause they had to sit pretty close together to get that many people on the hill out here."

The largest turnout ever was in 1939. That year 225-thousand people jammed audience hill for a sunrise performance.

Jim McCarthy

1:25:32         S-103

"People came from Europe; People have come from all over the world to see the Easter pageant right here. This is the longest running outdoor passion play in the country, if not in the world. Longest continuous running. Certainly the longest running in the United States."

Jim McCarthy

1:18:04         S-103

"There are families; there are people that have been in for over fifty years."

Many of the players can point to a parent or grandparent who played a part for years and then passed it on. Just as families have come out to watch for generations.

Jim McCarthy

1:20:00         S-103

"Every year we have a new Christ child for the manger, and sometimes the families that will continue. They will be with us as children and as adults as well.  They just move up the street as far as parts are concerned.  They'll be in the children's scene in the blessing of the children.  The next thing you know they'll become angels. That's what my granddaughter did this year.  Then there large enough as teenagers to be in crowd scenes and angels. And then the next thing you know they'll be in key parts."

Jim McCarthy

1:20:01         S-103

"Once people come and start they pretty much stay."

Rehearsals start on super bowl Sunday and every weekend after they practice. As the sun goes down on Saturday night before Easter, crowds spread blankets on the facing hilltop...and the actors step into the light.

Jim McCarthy

1:29:28         S-103

"I'll tell you, The first item you see a hill side full of angels that a moment ago it was dark, and when the lights come on there are these angels with huge sets of wings, some of them iridescent, some of them with different colors coming oh, It's just.. And the wind is blowing... a little of movement. It's spectacular! It makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It did for me I can tell you that. And it still does."

The pageant is performed just one night a year, but people come here year round to walk through the sets and to see the painted ceiling in the Chapel.

Jim McCarthy

1:24:08         S-103

"This is Holy Ground as far as I'm concerned, and I think all the people that come out here and work and a lot of our visitors feel the same way. I mean they just feel it when they come here."

Jim McCarthy

1:12:35      S-103

"It's peaceful. It's very much like holy ground. / People come out here just because it feels good."

Jim McCarthy

1:31:09        S-103

"All of the natural stones facilities you see out there from one end to the other.  Every one of those natural stone facilities the WPA Built.  That's our set. That's how we can present the Easter Pageant, and that's why this is the Holy City.  Cause of the WPA...Period."

Those who benefited from the WPA saw the programs as the margin between starvation and survival, life and death. Almost all of the workers are gone now, and every day we benefit from the culture and history they preserved.

TRT

BOOTH

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND HIS "NEW DEAL" ARE OFTEN CRITICIZED BY BOTH THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT.  AND IT CAN BE ARGUED THAT THE SECOND WORLD WAR DID MORE TO END THE GREAT DEPRESSION THAN DID ALL THE GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS OF THE 1930S.  CIVILIAN UNEMPLOYMENT DROPPED FROM 14 PERCENT IN 1940 TO  LESS THAN TWO PERCENT IN 1943.

NEVERTHELESS THE LEGACY OF THE WPA IS AS ENDURING AS ANY GOVERNMENT PROJECT EVER UNDERTAKEN.  AND AS WE'VE SEEN IT WAS MUCH MORE THAN BUILDINGS.

TRT