UNM will be hosting an exhibit in Zimmerman Library this week focusing on the University’s participation in New Deal programming as a recipient of the funds provided by the federal program created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s.
The exhibit, titled “A New Deal at UNM: federal funding transformation of the 1930s,” will run from Tuesday through the beginning of August.
“The exhibit is installed in the Center for Southwest Research. It is our own exhibit, using materials from the Center for Southwest Research special collections and some from UNM Art Museum collections,” said Audra Bellmore, UNM associate professor with the Center for Southwest Research.
The exhibit was promulgated by a donation to CSWR by the National New Deal Preservation Association, based in Santa Fe, which obtains grant funding and donations to finance the preservation and restoration of artwork from the New Deal era, Bellmore said.
“The material from their collection is important because it documents these works of art from across the country,” Bellmore said. “Since this national non-profit group is based in Santa Fe, the collection is particularly good at documenting artwork from New Mexico and the Southwest.”
The exhibit focuses on UNM as a recipient of New Deal funding. Prior to the program’s creation, the University's buildings were smaller in scale, she said.
New Deal funding financed the construction of several new buildings on campus through the Public Works Administration, including major projects in Scholes Hall and Zimmerman Library.
The Works Progress Administration funded many projects on campus including handcrafted furnishings in the Spanish Pueblo style for the PWA buildings. These were created by local youth in vocational workshops, she said.
Funding through the National Youth Administration also funded comprehensive student employment on campus — a precursor to the current work study structure, Bellmore said.
“Projects such as the Federal Writers Project and the Historic Records Survey employed writers, scholars and researchers on campus and across the state,” she said. “Art projects funded artists to create art for campus such as the Raymond Jonson and Willard Nash murals depicting student intellectual life and athletics, respectively.”
Additional examples of how New Deal programming has benefited UNM is through the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed young men to construct sidewalks, pathways, sprinkler systems and landscaping projects around campus, Bellmore said.
Art historians on campus were also employed to document traditional regional local decorative art and motifs so they would not be lost. Fine art was created for Carrie Tingley Hospital by the Works Progress Administration, which still decorates the Tingley Children's Hospital on University Boulevard, Belmore said.
“New Deal funding allowed for UNM to hire renowned Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem to design their ND buildings, and he stayed on to be University Architect from 1933-1959,” she said. “This arrangement allowed for UNM to develop the consistent and totally unique U.S. Spanish Pueblo style for campus.”
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The New Deal exhibit is the result of a joint collaboration between Bellmore and Nancy Brown Martinez, also of CSWR, being the senior curators, Bellmore said.
The curators also collaborated with students-graduate fellows from CSWR funded by the Center for Regional Studies and graduate students from the UNM museum studies program, she said.
“New Mexico as a whole benefited widely by the New Deal, because it was a poor state and the federal grants made a significant difference in the state,” Bellmore said. “Likewise, UNM as the state's flagship school also widely benefited from the funding.”
Nichole Harwood is a reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com.com or on Twitter @Nolidoli1.
