The New Deal in Murfreesboro Preview

1

The Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County

225 West College Street: Begin here at the Center which provides exhibits and public programming about the history of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County, including the Depression era. Walking tours of Murfreesboro’s historic downtown square are also offered.

2

Linebaugh Public Library

105 West Vine Street: Visit the Historical Research Room on the second floor. The Federal Writers Project (FWP) made many documents for genealogical research possible by hiring writers and historians to gather the information. Resources include microfilm of Murfreesboro newspapers, census records, community histories, Murfreesboro city directories, and marriage, death, probate, and cemetery records.

3

City Cafe

113 East Main Street: City Café opened in 1900 on the south side of the Square. Though it has changed locations since then, it is ne of Murfreesboro’s older businesses. In October 1935, Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographer Ben Shahn traveled through Murfreesboro, taking photographs to document the effect of the Depression and, more importantly, the New Deal, on towns throughout the United States. Shahn took several pictures of the town square, including the City Café.

4

Bradley Academy Museum and Cultural Center

415 South Academy Street: In the 1930s, Bradley Academy was the elementary school for black children in Murfreesboro and was an anchor for the middle-class black section of town. The building was painted by the WPA, and the Tennessee Emergency Relief Administration ran a nursery school for children in the building. Mary Ellen Vaughn, a black educator and nurse, wrote the federal Negro Bureau describing local efforts to raise educational standards in the area. The former school is now a multi-use cultural center and museum.

5

National Guard Armory

1220 West College Street: Construction of this building was funded in part by the WPA; it is now home to the Rutherford County Emergency Management Agency.

6

Rutherford County Archives

435 Rice Street: The collections document marriages, wills, births/deaths, property holdings, court cases, and county administrative history from 1840 to the present, providing a window on the Great Depression locally.

7

Stones River National Battlefield

3501 Old Nashville Highway: During the 1930s, Public Works Administration (PWA) workers built and improved the infrastructure of many of the country’s national parks, including the newly opened battlefield park at Stones River. PWA workers secured the park’s perimeter by putting up a wire fence and planting vegetative buffers, regarded the park’s tour road and the Nashville Pike, and improved the park’s open fields.

8

Middle Tennessee Medical Center

400 North Highland Avenue: The Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based philanthropy, built the original portion of the hospital (which faces University Street) in 1927. It is an excellent example of the Progressive-Era impulse to boost standards of health in the South, standards the New Deal would then apply nationwide. The WPA also painted the building in the 1930s.

9

Murfreesboro Little Theater

700 Ewing Boulevard: The National Youth Administration (NYA) originally built the log cabin structure for use as a Boy and Girl Scout Lodge for white children only in 1939. It now serves as a home for the nonprofit community theater.

10

Middle Tennessee State University

Middle Tennessee Boulevard and Main Street: WPA crews worked on the football stadium and landscaping projects at the then State Teachers College. Additionally, the NYA built the Industrial Arts Building. The Gore Center collection on campus includes oral interviews from the era, NYA Records, and records from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which had a camp in Murfreesboro.

11

Holloway High School

619 South Highland Avenue: Holloway was originally the black high school. During the 1930s, the school ran a NYA program called “Conservation of Youth,” which paid students to learn skills such as clerical work, housekeeping, and shop mathematics. Holloway is still a high school, emphasizing hands-on learning.

12

Veterans Administration Building, Veterans Administration Hospital

3400 Lebanon Pike: The VA Hospital was the major New Deal project in Rutherford County. The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the building, allocating $674,000 for it. WPA work crews did much of the construction and landscaping of the 21 buildings, golf course, ball fields, and gardens. The center produced its own electricity using dams built by WPA. The facility is now named the Alvin C. York Veterans Administration Medical Center.