The New Deal in Arizona

Arizona’s New Deal built sidewalks, post offices, provided school lunches and outhouses. It produced roadside shrines and monuments to encourage tourism, check dams and mud stock tanks to support Arizona ranchers as well as golf courses and pools for recreation. The federal investment in the built and cultural landscape of 1930s Arizona and the nation was sweeping and continues to provide much of our infrastructure. This overview of President Roosevelt’s New Deal in Arizona highlights stories of local politics that brought in federal dollars and bring Arizona’s New Deal to life.

J.J. Lamb is a native Tucsonan whose family ties to Vail date to 1971. She is a founding member of the Vail Preservation Society, a 2011 Arizona Culturekeeper and coordinated the New Deal in Arizona heritage tourism map, which earned a 2009 Governor’s Heritage Preservation Honor Award. She has developed exhibits related to the New Deal and Vail, Arizona and leads efforts to work with the Vail Unified School District to rehab a 1915 railroad house. J.J. graduated from the University of Arizona and completed the American Association for State and Local History Seminar for History Administration.