They didn't all carry shovels

WPA Workers and the Illinois State Museum

Jim L. Zimmer, Illinois State Museum Lockport Gallery

Russell Cummins, WPA worker at the Illinois State Museum, preparing bird skins for the collection. Photograph, c. 1940.

Following the 1929 stock market crash, the once vital American economy collapsed. By 1933 more than one-quarter of America's labor force was unemployed. Facing a nation plagued with the hardships of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a plan, which came to be known as the New Deal. As part of this initiative, an executive order under the Emergency Relief Act of 1935 created the Works Progress Administration (later Work Projects Administration) or WPA. The resulting federally funded work programs provided relief to millions of unemployed. Today many public buildings, parks, and roads remain as silent reminders of this work.

But who were the people who created this legacy? Contemporaries of the program may have identified the WPA only with men digging, building, or laying bricks. Women, however, contributed significantly to the effort and job assignments for both men and women extended beyond tasks of manual labor. Some WPA workers, facing challenges for which they were untrained, developed valuable work skills through the program.

The WPA embodied a complex amalgamation of diverse projects that has engendered renewed interest today Most familiar is the WPA Federal Art Project, responsible for producing thousands of artworks and the subject of several recent major exhibitions. However, another facet of the WPA, which remains relatively obscure, is the Museum Extension Program. This innovative project provided a significant service that ultimately affected thousands of people, particularly in Illinois.

In September 1938, the Illinois State Museum formed a liaison with the Museum Extension Program as its primary sponsor and became the headquarters for the statewide project. The program furnished Illinois public museums and communities with the technical expertise, design assistance and clerical aid to grow, interpret, and professionally present their collections. In addition to Springfield, twenty-two units were established around the state, including museums at Carthage College, Rockford, and the State's universities; historical societies in Aurora, Evanston, Madison County, McLean County, and Princeton; Elmhurst Public Library; Cahokia Courthouse; and the WPA Craft Shop at Petersburg. At these sites WPA workers were engaged in a variety of tasks: remodeling exhibit cases; collecting specimens, and preparing habitat groups for display; building historical dioramas; fabricating replicas; restoring structures and furnishings; and establishing decent, clerical, and custodial services. WPA workers also assisted with archaeological fieldwork, including excavations near Chillicothe and Joliet.

As primary sponsor of the WPA Statewide Museum Extension Project, the Illinois State Museum served as the project's centralized headquarters and offered professional and technical advice, but the benefits were reciprocal. The State Museum's regular staff numbered only twelve. An additional thirty-five WPA workers were trained by staff enabling the Museum to substantially increase its scope of operation and service to the public. WPA workers assisted with building several cultural and geological dioramas. Over 6,000 botanical and geological specimens were collected. Other workers prepared and mounted insects, animals, and birds for both display and research purposes.

In May 1940, the Illinois State Museum opened the Modern Youth Museum at the same location as the Central Laboratory of the Illinois WPA Museum Extension Project. This children's museum—housed on the first floor of Edward W. Payne House, 130 East South Grand Avenue in Springfield—became a testing ground for the museum's future educational outreach programs. Featured were rotating exhibits of dolls representing various cultures, models of transportation modes through history, and other miniature dioramas. These exhibits were designed and fabricated by WPA workers from the Central Laboratory, located on the second floor. The more popular exhibits were sent to the Chicago Workshop unit where they were duplicated and subsequently loaned by the Illinois State Museum to rural Illinois schools. The school loan program garnered enthusiastic response and continued many years after the Museum Extension Project closed on June 30, 1941.

Although six decades have passed since the close of the Extension Project, the work from the Project continues to affect, directly or indirectly, the modern museum visitor. The Illinois State Museum, this year celebrating its anniversary, acknowledges the people who contributed substantially via a federally sponsored work relief program. These men and women helped preserve our past and set in motion the vehicles to stir our curiosity about life today. No, not all WPA workers carried shovels.

14   ILLINOIS HERITAGE