These wooden elephants were part of a zoo toy set made by WPA workers during the Depression. Photo courtesy of Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
As unemployment rates continue to surge due to the pandemic, I keep thinking about the economic conditions of the 1930s. When millions of people were unemployed during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched New Deal programs to create jobs throughout the nation. In 1934, Chicago’s 22 independent park commissions consolidated to form the Chicago Park District (CPD)—a merger spurred in part by the need for federal relief funds in all of the city’s existing parks.
WPA workers building sidewalks in Washington Park, ca. 1938. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
Over the next several years the CPD would receive more than $100 million through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Public Works Administration (PWA). In addition to hiring architects, engineers, and laborers to repair and improve park facilities, the funds covered the salaries of park instructors, craftsmen, and artists. This month, I want to focus on some of the innovative WPA-funded craft-making programs offered in the park field houses, and the jobs they created for unemployed Chicagoans.
Instructors from South Side parks attended a workshop so that they could teach birdhouse-making, ca. 1935. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
The Crafts Section of the CPD’s Recreation Division offered a broad array of classes, workshops, and clubs, all supervised by instructors who had been hired through the WPA. These programs were available in dozens of park field houses across the city. The Chicago Recreation Survey of 1937 reported that “under the guidance of trained instructors,” adults and children could learn how to make “birdhouses, novelty furniture and whatnots, woodcarvings, baskets, trays, bowls, belts,” as well as musical instruments through the CPD.
Park patrons making archery gear, ca. 1938. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
Chief Whirling Thunder teaching a woman how to shoot with a bow and arrow, 1947. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
Some of the CPD craft programs were set up as clubs. For example, members of archery clubs could learn how to make their own bows and arrows, and then how to shoot them. Participants just had to pay the cost of materials. One of the instructors in this program was Chief Whirling Thunder, a Winnebago Indian from Wisconsin who described himself as a “member of the Thunderbird clan.” Prior to working for the Park District, Chief Whirling Thunder had been an instructor in Indian Lore at the Culver Military Academy Summer School. He would remain in his CPD position for decades, becoming something of a Chicago celebrity.
Another program was established for boys between the ages of 14 and 21. Participants in these clubs were taught how to make their own 19-½-foot-long wooden dinghies during the winter, and then learn how to sail time in the summer. These clubs participated in inter-fleet races, and because the clubs had brightly colored sails, the boats became known as the Rainbow Fleet. The Chicago Yachting association often donated the materials to make the program available to boys from various backgrounds throughout the city. In fact, some referred to this as the yachting club for the “non-wealthy.”
Boys making their own Rainbow Fleet dinghy, ca. 1938. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
The CPD Recreation Division published booklets to train instructors to teach programs such as model airplane building, ca. 1936. Courtesy of Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
There were also clubs in which members made model airplanes and then participated in tournaments to fly them. Such programs were not immune to criticism. In 1938, Chicago Tribune reporters spent weeks investigating what they considered “incredibly ludicrous” WPA projects. Journalist Clifford Blackburn wrote an article specifically attacking CPD programming. He snarkily quipped, “if it’s a creative diversion you want, a WPA instructor who draws $94 a month” will teach “the mysteries of constructing model airplanes and toy boats.” He added “these endeavors are known as public works. They are also known as boondoggling.”
Another Recreation Division initiative that provided pleasure to children and created jobs for WPA workers was rarely criticized. In fact, it provided a model to other park districts throughout Illinois. This was the toy lending program. It was launched in 1936, when the CPD set up a central workshop in McKinley Park where WPA workers repaired old toys and made new ones. Chicagoans were encouraged to donate broken toys to the workshop. The new toys were made from scrap materials. “Employees of the central workshop regularly distributed the play things to the different “lending libraries” In various field houses.
Left: These toys made by WPA workers through the “toy lending” program. Right: Every toy had a WPA stamp. Photo courtesy of Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
The “libraries” were open seven days a week. Each had a playroom, so children could either play with toys there, or use their library cards to check out a toy for a one-week period. In 1937, there were five toy lending libraries in Chicago parks. The program grew, and three years later, 18 park field houses had a toy lending library. A Chicago Tribune article of 1940 reported that children used the toy lending libraries 35,000 times each month, and that altogether these facilities circulated approximately 8,500 toys.
Children playing in the toy lending library, Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
The toy lending program helped alleviate the burdens of Depression era life for Chicago children, to at least some degree, while also creating greatly needed jobs for adults. I can only hope that similarly innovative responses can help put unemployed Chicagoans back to work soon.