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Aimed at relief, recovery, and reform, the New Deal was President Franklin Roosevelt’s answer to the economic crisis triggered by the stock market crash of 1929.  With millions of Americans unemployed as a result of the financial collapse, the federal government took measures to get America back on its feet.  The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was the coordinating body for many of the government’s “alphabet agencies”.  With the national unemployment rate topping 25%, the WPA disbursed some $11 billion in work relief to millions of Americans between 1935 and 1942.  During this period, the City of Dallas executed a number of WPA projects, employing many of the more than 15,000 Dallasites who were on the local relief rolls.  The City of Dallas’s WPA park improvement projects totaled nearly $300,000 in federal funding.  A total of $124,000 was contributed by the City.  Dallas led the state with 13,365 people on local WPA payrolls.

A large and complex organization, the WPA programs were coordinated by federal, state, and local authorities.  The Dallas office of the WPA, organized under Texas Department #4, administered programs under several different organizations.  These programs included the Public Works Administration (PWA), which split funding between City and federal sources and built several buildings in Fair Park; the WPA, which constructed parks and built roads; the National Youth Administration (NYA), which contributed to the construction of Dealey Plaza; and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which built parks and did other outdoor construction. The CCC was most famous in Dallas for its camp at White Rock Lake, which had educational and training opportunities for young men.

The citizens of Dallas benefited from more than just federally funded construction projects, however.  The WPA also worked to expand educational, health, library, and community-related projects.  Needy Dallas residents benefited from sewing projects, a toy and shoe repair program, as well as a surplus commodities redistribution program.  The city as a whole profited culturally from such WPA programs as the Federal Art Project, a public art project that employed artists who painted murals at Fair Park, Dallas City Hall, and other locations; the Federal Music Project, which hired musicians to perform at free public concerts; and the Federal Writers Project, whose participants produced The WPA Dallas Guide and History.  

​The following table shows City of Dallas projects wholly or partly funded through federal programs: 

Administrative correspondence and records concerning the day-to-day operation and construction of Park Department facilities. New Deal materials are not comprehensive and, in some files, entirely absent.

Administrative correspondence and records concerning the day-to-day operation and construction of White Rock Lake Park facilities.

Administrative correspondence and records concerning Lake Cliff Park, wading pool specifications, and city landscaping requirements.

Construction and planting plans for City of Dallas parks; includes master plans and drawings for White Rock Lake structures and landscaping and many Fair Park Texas Centennial buildings.

Information relating to the conservation of the Fair Park Esplanade which includes buildings that were created or adapted for the Texas Centennial and Pan-American Exposition.   

Photographs, condition reports, and treatment details relating to the conservation and restoration of murals created for the Texas Centennial and Pan-American Exposition.

Administrative correspondence and records concerning Fair Park. Includes federal funding information only on buildings built by the City of Dallas or deeded to the City of Dallas after the Texas Centennial.

Records concerning the construction of Dealey Plaza.

Includes reports and information on park facilities receiving federal relief funds.

Includes a copy of the 1938 Dallas Welfare Survey with statistics on federal relief funds.

Includes information on public works that received federal relief funds.

Includes information on Trinity River bridges built with federal relief funds.

Maps created mostly by City departments for various city government functions, such as planning and public works.  Maps often include information about city limits, extent of neighborhood development, and transportation details such as interurban lines, bus lines, and train tracks.

Includes some maps, plans, and drawings of public works projects that received federal relief funds.

Includes modern aerial photographs of federally-funded or assisted park projects, a 1940 album documenting CCC projects at White Rock Lake, and other visual documentation.

Includes photographs of federally funded Dallas Water Utility relief projects. 

Black and white photographic negatives and prints.  Aerial photographs of the entire City of Dallas for use by the city’s Public Works and Planning Departments.  Maps can be used to examine existing structures.

Includes reports and information on park facilities receiving federal relief funds.