enlarge Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

The Portland Observatory is on the list of New Deal projects being compiled by USM students, including, from left, Genevieve Rice, Christina Walker, David Wallace, J.J. Brewer and Sean Lent.

enlarge Associated Press file

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic recovery programs had a significant impact in Maine, where more than 13,000 men were reportedly employed on CCC projects in 1938.

enlarge Press Herald file photo

1939: CCC crews built roads, trails and shelters on and around Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park.

enlarge Press Herald file photo

1937: Civilian Conservation Corps members mingle with Army soldiers at Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth, which served as the CCC supply center in Maine.

MAINE AND THE NEW DEAL

Here's a partial list of New Deal construction projects around Maine:

Acadia National Park (1933-42): Civilian Conservation Corps built roads, trails and Blackwoods and Seawall campgrounds.

Baxter State Park (1933-35): CCC built roads, trails, bridges and shelters on and around Mount Katahdin.

Togus Veterans' Hospital (1935): Works Progress Administration funded construction of nurses' housing.

Appalachian Trail (1935-39): CCC built a 276-mile mountainous footpath through Maine, completing the end of the 2,139-mile trail.

Fort Williams (1935-39): CCC built stone walls, roads, bleachers and a lily pond at CCC state headquarters in Cape Elizabeth.

State School for Girls (1936): WPA funded construction of an infirmary and dormitory on the school’s former campus in Augusta.

Androscoggin Swinging Bridge (1938): WPA helped replace the pedestrian bridge from Brunswick to Topsham that was damaged in a spring 1936 flood.

Portland Observatory (1939): WPA provided $6,000 to restore the tower, replacing beams, walls, ceilings and exterior shingles.

Deer Isle Bridge (1939): WPA built the suspension bridge from Sedgwick across Eggemoggin Reach to Little Deer Isle in Penobscot Bay.

Portland Municipal Jetport (1940): WPA built the airport’s first real terminal, a brick structure that’s now the general aviation terminal.

PORTLAND — Everything David Wallace knew about the Great Depression of the 1930s assured him that it would never happen again.

Like many people, he thought regulations and protections were put in place to control Wall Street and the nation's banks, such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Now, as a history student at the University of Southern Maine, Wallace is studying the Great Depression at a time when the United States is in the midst of an economic crisis. Wall Street and the banking industry are in shambles, rocked by a mortgage crisis with worldwide reach.

"It's been proven that it can happen again," said Wallace, who lives in Brunswick.

It's an interesting, if unsettling, time to be studying one of the darkest periods in U.S. history, according to Wallace and his fellow students in professor Eileen Eagan's class, "The 1930s: Class, Culture and the New Deal."

They readily draw comparisons between President Obama's Recovery and Reinvestment Plan and then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration.

"We're seeing so many similarities to the 1930s, and it's affecting so many people across the world," said Sharoo Wengland of Naples. "There are also a lot of similarities between Obama and FDR and the attitudes of people toward their policies. But FDR didn't seem to be afraid to try new things, and neither does Obama."

Wallace, Wengland and several other students in the class are working on a special project, researching and documenting New Deal sites around Maine. They plan to submit their data to the Living New Deal Project, a central inventory started by the California Historical Society and the University of California at Berkeley.

Some New Deal projects in Maine are well known, such as murals painted in many post offices and public schools, including Deering High School and Nathan Clifford Elementary School in Portland.

Murals also were painted in post offices in Dexter, Dover-Foxcroft, Ellsworth, Fairfield, Farmington, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Millinocket, Norway, Portland, South Portland and Westbrook. The last is on display at the Portland Museum of Art.

New Deal writing projects, such as "Maine: A Guide Down East" (1937) and "Portland City Guide" (1940), are also well known to Maine historians and writers.

But other New Deal sites are less apparent and known to a dwindling number of people. So far, the USM students have identified more than 20 sites. They include the Portland Observatory on Munjoy Hill, overlooking Casco Bay, which was restored in 1939 with $6,000 from the Works Progress Administration, and the Androscoggin Swinging Bridge between Brunswick and Topsham, which was rebuilt in 1938 with WPA money.

Their list also includes road projects in Portland and Lewiston, sewer projects in Saco and several airport projects around the state, including the first terminal at Portland International Jetport, built in 1940.

"It really takes more in-depth research to find out what projects were done at that time," said student Sean Lent, who lives in Portland. "There's a distinct lack of documentation of WPA projects."

Mainers may have been less likely to venerate and remember FDR's efforts because he was less popular among voters here than elsewhere in the country, said student J.J. Brewer of Portland, who is making a video about New Deal projects in Maine.

In the years after the Great Depression, some people may have forgotten which projects were funded by the New Deal because it recalls a difficult time in our nation's history, when unemployment peaked at nearly 25 percent.

Earle Shettleworth, state historian, praised the USM students' effort. He said there is no comprehensive list of New Deal sites in Maine. He recently started his own inventory, which includes nurses'...