Masters Thesis

A study of the New Deal's impact on a small community : Eureka, California, 1937 - 1939

As Eureka city school students returned to begin the 1938-1939 school year, great changes were in the air. While the dark storm clouds of war brewed in Europe, the United States' economy was continuing its recovery from the now decade-long Great Depression. As the national unemployment rate began to diminish, a slew of new construction projects were being proposed for the Eureka public school system. At the center of local projects were proposals for four new elementary schools and, most strikingly, a new manual labor/industrial education building for Eureka High School. In order for the projects to be completed, Eureka public schools voters would have to approve a new school bonds initiative. If passed, the initiative would receive a forty-five percent matching federal grant from the Public Works Administration (PWA). As part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's economic recovery plan, the PWA was putting tens of thousands of people back to work on various construction projects throughout the nation. Although not comparable in scale to other massive building projects around the country, Roosevelt's New Deal was about to arrive for one of its greatest single projects in Eureka – the Industrial Arts building at Eureka High School. The purpose of this project is to shed light on one of tens of thousands of public works projects undertaken during the era of the New Deal. It is essentially divided into three sections. The first addresses the common effects of the Great Depression. The second tackles the historiography of the legacy of the New Deal. The third focuses on the specific role of the New Deal in Eureka, with the Eureka High School Industrial Education building as its centerpiece. While much general historiography has been generated on the socio-economic legacy and impact of the New Deal at the national and state level, virtually none exists on the New Deal's role in Eureka, California. Because of this paucity, the Humboldt Rooms at Humboldt State University and the Humboldt County libraries became vital research tools. The preponderance of research on the Great Depression and the New Deal in Eureka and the construction of the Industrial Education building at Eureka High School came from culling the microfiche resources of the Humboldt Standard, Humboldt Times and the Redwood Bark. The Humboldt County Historical Society also served as a base for archival research and oral interviews. Hopefully, this project will become part of a growing new historiography on the New Deal and Eureka.

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