"Change is in the making,
I feel it in the air...
I sense it everywhere.
It elates me, sates me.
I'm sure you will agree
change is not a part from me;
change is at the heart of me.
Change in the making
is what's happening to me."

-Change in the Making
a song about love & hope
sung by The Merchant & The Builder,
played by Khrista White &
Victor Rodriguez

words & music by K. Niemela
drawing by S. Teare
animations by G. McGarity-Alegrett

"Being in the woods
I see the forest for the trees.
My conserving nature
is what is conserving me."

-Citizen Conservation
a song about the Civilian Conservation Corps
sung by The Veteran,
played by Lourin Plant

words & music by K. Niemela
drawing by S. Teare
animations by G. McGarity-Alegrett

"Changing places,
the saving grace is
the work that we share,
side by side.
Can't deny
it's quite a ride
to reinvent our civic pride."

-Changing Places
a song about Federal Project
Number One
sung by The Immigrant,
played by Julian Coleman

words & music by K. Niemela
drawing by S. Teare
animations by G. McGarity-Alegrett

In its eight years of existence, the WPA changed the face of America. Hundreds of thousands of miles of road, innumerable public buildings, bridges, airports, and seaports – the very national infrastructure that we know today – was built by the WPA.  We're used to having accessible open spaces nearby because the WPA created so many public parks and recreational facilities.  The WPA's Federal Project Nmber One, including the Federal Arts Project, Federal Writers Project, Federal Theatre Project, and Federal Music Project fostered a greater appreciation for the arts and humanities through thousands of publicly accessible paintings, writings, plays, and music.  The Federal Writers project, along with the WPA's Historical Records Survey also captured living history, from the stories of migrant workers to the narratives of former slaves, and created interest in the preservation of historical records nationwide.

We live in a politically divisive time; our conversations about wealth, poverty, and the availability of opportunity are not unlike those of the 1930s.  Working for the common good feels like a quite uncommon occurence, and the very words "social justice" and "progressive agenda" strike fear in the hearts of some people.  Perhaps we can argue the politics and economics of the WPA; we can argue about its ultimate place in stimulating a recovery from the Great Depression.  But one thing remains indisputable, both in the historical record and in the stories collected by COSACOSA for the Spare A Dime project:  the WPA built the America we take for granted today.  And even more importantly, the WPA gave the country hope in a time of hopelessness. It offered opportunity – the possibility of a better life where there was none before – to millions of Americans.  It made us work together.

• The Custom House and Appraisers Stores, 200 Chestnut Street: “Custom House and Court Activities” and “Various Port Activities in Philadelphia,” 1938 mural in 31 panels by George Harding (pictured at right)

• The Kingsessing Post Office branch, 52nd Street and Baltimore Avenue: “Philadelphia Waterways with Ben Franklin Bridge” and “View of Downtown Philadelphia Skyline,” 1939 oils on canvas by Moses and Raphael Soyer

• The North Philadelphia Post Office branch, 2601 North 16th Street:  “Mail Delivery,” “City,” “Country,” “Northern Coast,” “Office,” “Home,” “Tropics,” and “History of Mail Transportation by Water,” 1939 tempera paintings by George Harding

• The Southwark Post Office branch, 925 Dickinson Street:  “Iron Plantation near Southwark – 1800″ and “Shipyards at Southward – 1800,″ 1938 oils on canvas Philadelphia by Robert E. Larter (pictured at right)

• The Spring Garden Post Office branch, 7th and Thompson Streets: “Streets of Philadelphia," 1938 oil on canvas by Walter Gardner 

• The William Penn Annex Post Office branch, 900 Market Street: “Mail Delivery – North, South, East, West,” 1941 bas relief sculptures by Edmond R. Amateis

• The William Penn Annex Post Office branch, 900 Market Street: “Law,” “Justice,” and two eagles,  1940 bas relief sculptures by Donald De Lue ("Justice" pictured below, complete with fasces – just like our Bok stage and the back of the 1935 Liberty dime!)

Fairmount Park is home to thirteen shelters built by the Works Progress Administration in 1938 and 1939.  Pictured at left, the Wissahickon Shelter, like all of the park's WPA structures, is situated along the path of the Wissahickon Creek.

Philadelphia's Central High School opened in 1838 and was the oldest high school in the United States not in New England. The school changed buildings many times over the years, including in 1854 and in 1900.  Its final and current iteration is a WPA-built structure from 1939, located at 1700 West Olney Avenue.

Philadelphia's 30th Street Post Office building, located at 30th and Market Streets, is a giant art deco masterpiece built by the WPA in 1935.  Serving as the city's main post office for over seventy years, it has been renovated into a multipurpose office building.

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at some of Philadelphia's public art created by the WPA's Federal Project Number One.

The paradigm
of Spare A Dime
finds parallels of place and time,
the mystery
of history
repeating, and we hope you'll see
true Liberty
finds unity
of purpose in community.
Rise or fall, we'll always be
together, indivisibly.

A big shout out and our deepest gratitude to the fantastic cast, musicians, and crew of Spare A Dime, and to all of the project's community participants.  You define the very essence of the power of art to transform lives.  Thank you.

We're in the thick of Spare A Dime rehearsals and tech set-up at the Bok Theater.  In an homage to Federal Project Number One (the artists' initiative) during the song Changing Places, Spare A Dime's set animations celebrate the wide variety of civic posters created by WPA artists.  These two (at left), about healthy eating and the value of science are some of our favorites, illustrating the wide range of subject matter tackled by WPA posters.  They especially resonate with COSACOSA staff,  as we're in the midst of testing new art & biology and art & healthy eating curricula in North and South Philly middle schools!  (And it's ironic that Spare A Dime composer Kimberly Niemela was a chemist in her first career!

Click here to buy Spare A Dime tickets – just $10 general admission!
Proceeds benefit COSACOSA's youth programs citywide – including those where art meets science!

"The Works Progress Administration (WPA) has made a significant impact in my life, many years after its contributions were first presented," said vocalist Lourin Plant. "During the Great Depression, nearly 100,000 former slaves were still alive. The WPA, through its Federal Writers Project, recorded interviews with more than 2,400 former slaves about their life experiences under the institution of slavery. These recorded interviews and photographs, along with existing slave narratives, make up the largest body of writings by an enslaved people in the world. They record for us primary eyewitness accounts of the realities of slavery as an institution and the enormous humanity of African American people. As such, they are of paramount importance to our American story. They help open our continuing dialogue about slavery, freedom, and democracy. The WPA submissions help illuminate the resilient transcended soul at the center of the incomprehensibly stressful lives African-Americans struggled to carve out for themselves under the yoke of slavery. The WPA contributions are an indispensable part of our Nation’s history.”

Plant is playing the role of The Veteran in Spare A Dime, ironically following his recent appearance as a WWI soldier in Opera Philadelphia's production of Silent Night.  Plant appears as both countertenor and baritone throughout the country, performing with organizations including Opera Philadelphia (pictured), New York City Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati May Festival, Dayton Opera, Amherst Early Music Festival, Northern Lights Music Festival, Philadelphia Classical Symphony, Philadelphia Ancient Voices, Voces Novae et Antiquae, Piffaro, Jim Thorpe Bach Festival, and in the touring ensembles of Michael Crawford, Russell Watkins, and Barbra Streisand.  Plant’s presentations on African-American spirituals have been featured in state, regional and international conferences, and his articles have appeared in Classical Singer Magazine and the National Association of Teachers of Singing Journal of Singing. His conducting, renaissance harp playing, solo and choral singing are featured on the recent CD “Magdalene and the Other Mary: Songs of Holy Women,” distributed by Church Music Publishing.  Plant holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Wittenberg University, Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Choral Conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. He has served on the voice faculties of Sinclair College and Humboldt State University of California.  Now in the nineteenth year of his appointment at Rowan University, he has served as coordinator of the vocal/choral division, and conductor of the Rowan University Chamber and Concert Choirs, and Collegium Musicum (early music ensemble). His choirs have appeared throughout the region and three times at Carnegie Hall.

Click here to get your tickets to Spare A Dime today!

The National Endowment for the Arts describes its tagline "Art Works" as serving "to remind us of the ways that art works on audiences to change, confront, challenge, and inspire us; to allow us to imagine and to aspire to something more."  Art's role in working for America was never more evident than during the Great Depression. 

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) saw all artists as workers, with skills as valuable as any other profession.  For visual artists, being asked to make art for America at a liveable wage -- without having to market it -- was a very unusual circumstance. Whether documenting the times through photography, painting public murals, or designing civic posters, the visual artists of the WPA contributed iconic imagery that confronted the status quo and created hope for a better future.

Artists' empowerment during the 1930s stretched well beyond the WPA.  With the rise of the social realist movement, for the first time on a mass scale art centered on the challenging themes like poverty, workers' rights,  and racism.  A painting or a poster may not stop a lynching or a slaughter, but it can move us instantly to reframe our perspective -- worth more than a thousand words of counter argument.  As COSACOSA's tagline says, art can "Make it Better.™"  An art of the people, by the people, and for the people creates social justice.  Art works to move us forward.