The New Deal speakers below are experts in their field and have a passion for the New Deal and all it stands for.

CHRISTOPHER N. BREISETH, Ph.D.
Topics: “Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Four Freedoms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”
“Frances Perkins, the New Deal and Social Security.”
Dr. Breiseth can be contacted at the email address below and prefers to provide his presentations in areas no more than four or five hours from his home in Ticonderoga, NY.

Dr. Breiseth was president and CEO of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute located at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., from 2001 to 2009. He received his Ph.D. in history at Cornell University, his M.Lit. in Modern British History at Oxford University and his B.A. in history at UCLA. He was president of Deep Springs College in California from 1980 to 1983 and president of Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., from 1984-2001. From his friendship with Frances Perkins at the Telluride House at Cornell, he wrote in 1966 “The Frances Perkins I Knew” the year after her death. He is presently a board member of the Frances Perkins Association. By accessing the internet, one can read his essay on Frances Perkins, his speech at Warm Springs, Ga., commemorating the death of FDR, and his essay on Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. He taught history at Cornell University, Williams College, Sangamon State University (now the University of Illinois at Springfield), Deep Springs College and Wilkes University. Now retired, he resides in Ticonderoga, NY.
Breiseth can be reached at cnbreiseth@aol.com

DOUG LEEN
Topic: “National Park Service poster art”
“Ranger Doug” aka Dr. Doug Leen, dentist, is available to share his knowledge about National Park Service poster art. His art collection (both historic and contemporary) was on exhibit at the Department of Interior Building in Washington, DC, for 14 months in 2014 and 2105 and he is now taking to the road for the centennial of the park service. He is available to give talks to anyone who is interested so contact him at mail@dougleen.com. His website is www.dougleen.com. His phone number is 907-518-0335.

SARAH MUNRO
Topics: “Timberline Lodge-Construction and Art”
“Timberline Lodge Art-An Icon of the New Deal”
Sarah Baker Munro is the author of Timberline Lodge: The History, Art and Craft of an American Icon. She is the past president of the Board of Friends of Timberline Lodge (where she learned to ski as a child) and has been voted the historian of Timberline Lodge by Friends of Timberline. She received her bachelor’s degree in hart history and anthropology at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA and her master’s degree in folklore at the University of California , Berkeley . Her interested in Timberline was renewed in 1975, after the non-profit Friends of Timberline was formed to support restoration and preservation efforts. As a member of a committee of volunteers form the Junior League, she learned about and met with original builders, artists, and craftspeople, most of whom are now deceased. She coauthored with Rachael Griffin, retired curator of Portland Art Museum, a catalog about the lodge in 1978 and has revised and updated several editions of the guidebooks.

In 2004 she helped organize a symposium on the New Deal in Oregon, curated an exhibit celebrating the 75th anniversary of the New Deal (2008) and has written articles and appeared on several public broadcasting television segments related to the Pacific Northwest and Timberline specifically. She can be reached at sarahmunro@comcast.net

ROBERT D. LEIGHNINGER, JR., PhD.
Topics: “New Deal public works programs in general”
“Public Works Administration (PWA) in particular states and cities”
Bob Leighninger specializes in the public building programs of the New Deal. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and Syracuse University with a Ph.D. in Sociology and is currently a Faculty Associate with the School of Social Work at Arizona State University . He is the author of Long Range Public Investment: The Forgotten legacy of the New Deal ( Univ. of South Carolina Press , 2007), an overview of all the New Deal public works programs and their accomplishments throughout the county, and Building Louisiana: The Legacy of the Public Works Administration (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2007) which documents all the projects of one New Deal agency in one state. His slide collection has illustrations from many cities but is particularly strong on Albuquerque , Baltimore , Charleston (SC), Minneapolis/St. Paul, Nashville , San Antonio , Seattle , the San Francisco Bay Area, St. Louis, Washington, DC, Northern Vermont, most of Arizona, and all of Louisiana. He can be reached in Phoenix at 602-496-0094 or rleighn@asu.edu

DAVID LEMBECK
Topics: “Pennsylvania’s Post Office Art of the New Deal”
“Pennsylvania’s Vanished Industries in Post Office Art”
David Lembeck has been studying Pennsylvania post office art and architecture for more than ten years. Following graduation from Pennsylvania State University with majors in Graphic Design and Speech Communications he worked in publication design in Baltimore, Washington, DC and State College. Much of his work deals with architecture and historic preservation.

Lembeck, a graphics designer, was commissioned along with Michael Mutmansky, photographer, by the Pennsylvania Heritage Museum to create several post office art themed projects: a website featuring nine post offices of the 88 across the state, an article for the Winter 2008 issue of Pennsylvania Heritage magazine, and an exhibition of our photographs at the State Museum starting November 2008. The exhibition is now traveling the state after making a memorable impact on the citizens in Pennsylvania who saw it at their museum. He can be reached at 814-237-6319 or DCL825@gmail.com

KATHRYN A. FLYNN
Topics: “New Deal Art and Architecture in New Mexico”
“The New Deal is Still a Good Deal”
“Women in New Mexico’s New Deal Projects”
Ms. Flynn is the Executive Director of the National New Deal Preservation Association and resides in Santa Fe, NM. She has her Bachelor’s degree in Education from University of Utah and Master’s from Southern Illinois University in Rehabilitation Counseling and Psychology. She held various administrative positions in New Mexico ’s state government’s health departments and finished out her career as the Deputy Secretary of State. During that time she became fascinated with the many and varied New Deal treasures around the state including public buildings, public art and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) accomplishments in state parks and monuments and spent many hours interviewing as many participants as possible about their memories of that part of their lives. She has authored three books on the subject and assisted on another one. Her first two solo books are “Treasures on New Mexico Trails: New Deal Art and Architecture” and “The New Deal: A 75th Anniversary Celebration.” She wrote an expanded guide to New Deal sites in New Mexico titled “Public Art and Public Architecture in New Mexico-1933-43: A Guide to the New Deal Legacy,” which includes offerings in 90 cities and towns around the state. She also assisted with “A More Abundant Life.”
She can be reached at 505-473-3985 or newdeal@cybermesa.com

HARVEY SMITH
Topic: “The New Deal, Infrastructure and the Public Sector”
In the 1930s, the New Deal reached the neediest Americans and built an infrastructure that still serves us today. By the late twentieth century, the major infrastructure building program in California was the construction of the world’s largest prison system. How did we transition from a New Deal to a “Raw Deal”—from one that helped those in need to one that now locks away a similar population? Who is served by the diminution and neglect of the public sector? Why are we selling off the public sector and facing breeches of levees, the collapse of bridges and the neglect of schools? Many have called for a new New Deal. How would this impact the average working American today?

Harvey Smith is a project advisor to California’s Living New Deal Project and board president of the National New Deal Preservation Association. He developed an interest in the building of public infrastructure and programs following the 1989 Bay Area Loma Prieta earthquake. Initial concern for the employment of community residents in local rebuilding efforts led to research and documentation of the impact of comprehensive and progressive New Deal public policy of the 1930s and 1940s. Previously he researched health care reforms in California and international health systems. He worked with community clinics doing health planning, community organizing and policy advocacy with varying governmental agencies. He was a graduate school instructor at U.C. Berkeley and taught in public middle and high schools. He has also worked as a union carpenter, radio journalist and horse rancher. He received a B. A. in English and master of public health degree from U.C. Berkeley.
He can be reached at harveysmithberkeley@yahoo.com

JAN MARFYAK
Topics: “Influences of abstract impressionists on the New Deal”
Jan Marfyak is the son of a New Deal artist. His father, of the same name, was located for seven months at the Art Center in Roswell during his five years with CWA, FERA and WPA. Since moving to New Mexico after a career in both state and Federal governments, Jan is a Board member and Treasurer of both the New Mexico New Deal Preservation Association and the and National New Deal Preservation Association. He is curator of his father’s extensive works of art. He has developed several PowerPoint presentations that focus on the impact abstract expressionists—of which his father was one—had on the New Deal, especially in New Mexico.
He can be reached at jano1933@gmail.com

PRICE FISHBACK
Price Fishback is an economics professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a co-editor of the Journal of Economic History. He is an authority on economic issues of the New Deal and has published several papers in the field. He has lectured in several states and foreign countries, including Australia, Canada, Great Britain and South Africa. For more details, visit his faculty page.

He can be reached at pfishback@eller.arizona.edu
Below is a list of lectures and presentations Price has done in 2012
Presentations at Professional Meetings
“New Deal or No Deal in the Cotton South: The Effect of the AAA on the Agriculture Labor Structure.” With Briggs Depew and Paul Rhode. Presented at the Second NBER Conference on the Microeconomics of the New Deal in Cambridge, MA, AZ, July 27, 2012.

“The Political Benefits of Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from the New Deal,” with Shawn Kantor and John Wallis. Presented at the Second NBER Conference on the Microeconomics of the New Deal in Cambridge, MA, July 26, 2012.
“The Impact of the AAA on Farm Wages,” with Michael Haines and Paul Rhode. Presented at the NBER-Development of the American Economy Sessions at the Summer Institute. Cambridge, MA, July 23, 2012.
“Comparing the Relief Response to the Great Depression in Australia and the United States,” Session on Pioneering the Welfare State? Sickness, Accident Disability and Old Age Assistance and the Making of Social Security in the 18th and 19th Century.” World Economic History Congress, July 13, 2012.
“New Deal or No Deal in the Cotton South: The Effect of the AAA on the Agriculture Labor Structure.” With Briggs Depew and Paul Rhode. Presented at the NBER Conference on the Microeconomics of the New Deal in Tucson, AZ, March 3, 2012.

“The Political Benefits of Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from the New Deal,” with Shawn Kantor and John Wallis. Presented at the NBER Conference on the Microeconomics of the New Deal in Tucson, AZ, March 2, 2012.
“The New Deal: What Worked and What Did Not.” Noel Butlin Lecture (keynote speech) at the Asia Pacific Economic and Business History meetings in Canberra, Australia, February 20, 2012.
Talks Related to the New Deal at Universities
Australian National University, Feb. 12, 2012
Latrobe University, Melbourne Australia, Feb. 10, 2012
University of Arizona, Oct. 14, 2012
University of Georgia, Oct. 25, 202
Lectures to High School and Middle School Teachers on the Great Depression and New Deal
Williamsburg, VA, July 2012
Phoenix, AZ, November 2012

SHEILA COLLINS, PhD
Topic: “Public Attitudes Toward Government in the Great Depression and the Great Recession”
At a time when domestic government spending is derided as “socialist” and government attempts to right social and systemic wrongs, however limited, are seen by many as threats to individual liberties, it seems unfathomable that there was a time when government was seen by a significant sector of the population as beneficent. Yet the Great Depression, after the initiation of the New Deal, was just such a time. How is it that the public attitude toward government was so different in the 1930s from what it is today? This talk explores the political and cultural reasons for this discrepancy and what we can learn about it for contemporary politics and policy making.

Topic:“The New Deal’s “Bottom-Up” Approach to Relief, Recovery and Reform” (illustrated talk)
Throughout his 1932 presidential campaign, Franklin Roosevelt criticized Hoover’s policies to stem the tide of depression as “trickle-down,” while demanding a recovery program “that builds from the bottom up and not from the top down.” After becoming president, Roosevelt did just that, turning orthodox economic policy on its head and changing the balance of public and private power. Today, the balance has shifted back in favor of private power. This talk contrasts Roosevelt’s “bottom-up” approach with the “top-down” approach of current administrations, demonstrating that, while incomplete, Roosevelt’s “bottom-up approach” was both more politically popular and economically successful.

Topic: “The Rightful Heritage of All: The New Deal’s Response to Environmental Crises” (illustrated talk)
Most comparisons of the 2007-2008 economic meltdown with the Great Depression of the 1930s focus on the financial and economic similarities. They forget or ignore the fact that both periods are characterized by intertwined economic and environmental crises. Although our current environmental crises are of a different order of magnitude, there is much we can learn for environmental policy-making today from the response of the Roosevelt Administration to the environmental crises of the 1930s. This talk explores what the New Deal did and what we can learn from it.
Topic: “The Democratization of Culture: The Legacy of the New Deal Arts Programs and Why the Arts Matter Today” (illustrated talk)

The arts and cultural programs funded by the New Deal represented a de-commodification of arts and culture. For the first time, people who had never before participated in making art, those who could not afford to attend cultural events or to receive arts instruction were able to do so. The result was an incredible flourishing of artistic endeavor that graced public buildings all over the country, involved hundreds of thousands of people in the making and enjoyment of the arts, lifted their spirits during a time of deep stress and pessimism, and left an indelible imprint on the history and culture of the country. At a time when arts funding is being slashed, we need to learn from the experience of this remarkable experiment in the democratization of culture.

Sheila D. Collins is Professor of Political Science Emerita at William Paterson University and former Director of its Graduate Program in Public Policy and International Affairs. She is co-chair of the Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare & Equity at Columbia University and co-editor with Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg of When Government Helped: Learning from the Successes and Failures of the New Deal (Oxford University Press, 2013). She has written three of the chapters in this book, has taught graduate seminars on the New Deal, and has spoken about the New Deal to a variety of community groups. In October 2013 she co-organized a conference at Columbia University entitled, “An Economic Bill of Rights for the 21st Century,” taking off from Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 Economic Bill of Rights and updating it for today.
She can be reached at Sheila.collins65@verizon.net, or by telephone at 914-633-0456.

RICHARD MAROLD AND MARY JANE BRADBURY
Topic: “FDR Chautauqua Presentation: An Affair of the Heart”
Richard Marold, Chautauqua speaker and author, and Mary Jane Bradbury, Chautauqua speaker and actor, collaborate in “FDR: An Affair of the Heart.” This Chautauqua presentation examines the close relationships Franklin Delano Roosevelt had with three women: his wife, Eleanor, Lucy Mercer Rutherford and Margaret ‘Daisey’ Suckley. Marold and Bradbury have performed “FDR: An Affair of the Heart” in several states.
For more information and bookings, Rmarold@comcast.net, or by telephone 719-633-0416.

LESLIE AMPER
Topic: “Sounds of the 1930’s”
Leslie Amper, accomplished pianist and lecturer, is performing her program of piano recital and lecture, “Sounds of the 1930’s,” nationwide. Her program focuses on the works of composers who benefited from FDR’s initiatives to support artists which includes 200 composers through the WPA/Federal Music Project. Featured artists in her recitals include the works of Roger Sessions, William Grant Still, Ruth Crawford and Aaron Copland.

Amper is currently teaching at Longy School of Music of Bard College, New England Conservatory Preparatory and Wheaton College. She has lectured at Harvard College, Boston University, University of Pittsburgh and the New Hampshire Music Festival, where she is a regular performer.

Amper can be reached at RPanda6@aol.com, through her website, leslieamper.com, or at 781-784-7101.