Kraus' Recreation and Leisure in Modern Society 10th Edition by Daniel McLean, Linda Dayer-Berenson, Brian Luke Seaward, Amy Hurd

تمرين 14

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Legacy for Parks and Recreation
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a legacy that has had enduring and significant influence on parks and recreation. It can be argued that Roosevelt's New Deal was a tool that initiated a growth of public parks and recreation areas, state parks, national parks, conservations, and wildlife areas.
The New Deal was a product of one of the most difficult periods in American history. Roosevelt was elected after the 1929 stock market crash and came to office in 1933. He saw the need to put Americans to work. The term "New Deal" was introduced during Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech, when he said, "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people." a Roosevelt summarized the New Deal as a "use of the authority of government as an organized form of self-help for all classes and groups and sections of our country." a
The New Deal represented a major shift in government involvement in everyone's lives. Its main purpose was to put people back to work and improve the economy. It is important to remember that during this period unemployment hovered at 30% nationwide. Among the important initiatives created, two significantly influenced parks and recreation. They were the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
The CCC initially targeted putting three million young men, between the ages of 18 and 25 years, to work. The CCC was involved in road building, forest maintenance and restoration, and flood control. The West saw the heavy use of CCC and the WPA's workers in national forests, national parks, on Indian reservations, and in municipal and state parks for work on natural resource-related projects. b During the existence of the CCC, members planted nearly three billion trees to help reforest America and constructed more than 800 parks nationwide that would become the start of many state parks. c
At the height of the program, 47 of 48 states participated in CCC programs, and in 1935 there were 475 CCC camps on state park lands. By the end of the CCC program, 405 state parks directly benefited from the program. In some cases, whole state parks were turned over to appreciative states. Georgia, as an example of a benefiting state, in 2010 identified 11 state parks that still had CCC-constructed facilities. The structures include a bathhouse, casino, dam, pumphouse, residences, comfort stations and picnic shelters, springhouse, bridge and walkways, museum building, blacksmith shop, and group shelters, to name a few. Georgia's legacy of the CCC is similar to many states that point to the WPA and CCC as an unexpected boon. d
The WPA established in 1935 and renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration, similarly focused on creating jobs for the unemployed. It became the largest of the New Deal programs carrying out public works projects that involved the construction of public buildings and roads, and it operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. It fed children and redistributed food, clothing, and housing. Almost every community in the United States had a park, bridge, or school constructed by the agency. The WPA spent billions of dollars on reforestation, flood control, construction of facilities and parks and recreation areas, and many other conservation and community projects. From a municipal and state perspective, the WPA had a significant impact on communities and their ability to provide park and recreation resources and services. For example, the WPA hired artists, actors, and musicians to provide programming, create art, and hold concerts for local communities. In some cases, the construction of park shelters, restrooms, picnic shelters, swimming pools, and other facilities remain today.
An example WPA project from New York City is McCarren Pool, located in Brooklyn. McCarren Pool was the eighth of 11 giant pools built by the WPA, opening during the summer of 1936. With a capacity of 6800 swimmers, the pool served as the summertime social hub. The pool was closed in 1984, but in 2006 the abandoned pool was the site of a series of Sunday afternoon concerts. The mayor of New York announced in 2007 that major renovations would be undertaken to reopen the pool. e
The National Park Service (NPS) has done the most effective job of chronicling the CCC and WPA involvement with their areas. The NPS budget was $10.8 million in 1933, and yet, NPS took advantage of the New Deal, receiving $218 million for emergency conservation projects between 1933 and 1939. The NPS said, "Almost all federal conservation activities after 1933, including those in the national parks and monuments, were designed in part as pump-priming operations that would not only protect our national resources but also indirectly stimulate the economy." f
The work of New Deal organizations from 1933 to 1942 provided a foundation that would be expanded upon throughout the remainder of the twentieth century.
Prepare a series of justifications for implementation of a New Deal program today.