New Deal Utopias photographs by Jason Reblando, published by Kehrer Verlag. 

Texts by Natasha Egan and Robert Leighninger 

This lecture is co-sponsored by: 

Department of American Studies, UMD

Historic Preservation Program in the College of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, UMD

Urban Studies and Planning Program in the College of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, UMD.

Lectures take place in the Greenbelt  Community Center, 15 Crescent Road, Greenbelt MD 20770 and are free and open the public. This lecture is offered in conjunction with the current exhibit, The Knowing Hands That Carve This Stone: The New Deal Art of Lenore Thomas Straus which is sponsored by the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority.

Join us as we welcome Jason Reblando who will discuss his new book, New Deal Utopias. He will also have copies of the book for sale! From his website: "New Deal Utopias explores one of the most ambitious but overlooked federal programs in American history. During the Great Depression, the U.S. government constructed three planned communities – Greenbelt, Maryland; Greenhills, Ohio; and Greendale, Wisconsin -- to resettle displaced farmers and poor urban dwellers. These "Greenbelt Towns" embodied the hope that American citizens would meet the challenges of the Great Depression in a spirit of cooperation, not individualism. The planners from the Resettlement Administration hoped it would not only transform the people who resided in these new communities, but also hoped to remake the landscape of American cities, as inspired by Sir Ebenezer Howard’s “Garden City” principles. Howard, a British urban reformer in the late 19th century, envisioned cities where nature would be part of everyday life, and residents would have the social and economic advantages of living in a community with each other."