It’s thanks to my recent visit to the Norfolk Botanical Garden that the question in the title ever entered my mind. Like Greenbelt, it began as a New Deal project – in its case a $76,278 grant from the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Unlike Greenbelt, all the 220 workers who built the first garden there were African-American – 200 women and 20 men.

Since most of the male labor force was at work with other projects for the city, a group of more than 200 African American women and 20 men were assigned to the Azalea Garden project.

Laboring from dawn until dusk, the workers cleared dense vegetation and carried the equivalent of 150 truckloads of dirt by hand to build a levee for the surrounding lake. For a period of four years, the 220 original workers continued the back-breaking task of clearing trees, pulling roots and removing stumps. They worked in harsh conditions, long hours during all four seasons, regardless of the blistering heat, humidity, rain, finger-numbing cold, snow or frigid temperatures. They battled snakes, mosquitoes, ticks, and poison ivy. In less than a year, a section of the trees, briers, vines and underbrush had been cleared and readied for planting, using only pickaxes, hoes, shovels, and wheelbarrows. By March 1939, the work had progressed so that 4,000 azaleas, 2,000 rhododendrons, several thousand camellias, other shrubs and 100 bushels of daffodils had been planted. The men and women turned overgrown, swampy acres into a garden that stylistically expressed the national trend of landscape architecture during the late 1930’s. Neither the work nor the pay was great, but it was a means of putting food on the table, which would not have been possible otherwise.

Jobs were scarce, and these workers were paid 75 cents a day. However, segregation was firmly in place and African-Americans weren’t allowed to visit the garden until decades later. Just like here in Greenbelt.

The good news is that in 2008, the garden began to celebrate these workers with yearly WPA Garden Heritage events held in the azalea-filled area now called the WPA Memorial Garden, with this beautiful statue as its focal point.

I was delighted to learn how this recognition of WPA workers came to be.

Thanks to Problem-Solving Middle-Schoolers!

In 2003 a group of middle school students who’d formed a Future Problem Solvers of America Club came to the garden with the idea of uncovering the little-known story of the garden’s original workers. So they advertised locally to find out if any were still living and did find one original gardener at that time, in 2004. She was 80 years old and had not been back to the garden since she left in 1942.

Many of the workers’ descendants attended the first WPA celebration, with one quoted as saying “Mother is like our momma celebrity now!” A spokesperson for the garden said, “We want their families and we want our community to know this, that these are the people who allow us to be here today.”

To see photos from my November 2024 visit to the garden, click here.

Do we know who built Greenbelt?

Naturally, the history of Norfolk’s public garden made me wonder about the men – all men – who were hired by the Resettlement Administration in 1936 to build Greenbelt. I found these photos of them on the Library of Congress’s website, tagged “Greenbelt.” According to Living New Deal scholars, workers in Greenbelt were supplied by the Works Progress Administration.

I related the Norfolk story to Sheila Maffay-Tuthill (Education and Volunteer Coordinator at the Greenbelt Museum) and asked if Greenbelt’s builders were known and learned that they’re not. So she started brainstorming right away about how they could be found –  maybe with the help of an archival intern. Though it’s too late for even resourceful middle-schoolers to discover still-living workers, descendants could probably be found, and names could be gathered and maybe displayed, like they are in the Norfolk garden.

Perhaps also the Greenbelt Reparations Commission would be interested in researching these workers soon lost to history.

More photos of African-American workers in Greenbelt:

I don’t know why some of the Library’s photos have a big black circle on them. UPDATE: Thanks to Ben Fischler for sending me this article explaining the mysterious black dots.

Photos like these might be helpful in identifying the workers and their descendants. They’re among the 1,600+ Greenbelt-tagged photos in the Library of Congress’s collection. More New Deal photos – many by photographers hired by New Deal agencies – can be found at the National Archives.

And finally, I can’t resist including this beautiful photo of workers, maybe the ones who built my own home!

Explore More History

To find more New Deal projects or contribute information about any of them, visit Living New Deal. It’s a growing archive created by some academicians in California.

Or click here to read more articles on this blog about Greenbelt’s history.

New! Some Local Recognition

Since my visit to Norfolk I’ve noticed an event coming up this week at the National Arboretum, recognizing its New Deal workers (employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.) I won’t miss it!

Sources for Norfolk text and photos: “WPA War Memorial” on the garden’s website;  video “WPA Original Gardeners;” “Celebrating the WPA Original Gardeners” on the garden’s website; “Garden Heritage Celebration” on the garden’s website and “Breaking Ground with the WPA” on the garden’s website.