Speakers Bureau

Our organization, particularly our board members and advisors, are most knowledgeable on the various New Deal programs, and we are available to speak at your event.  Click to see the speakers' list, their qualifications, subjects and contact information.  Costs can be determined between the speaker and the hosting site but should include travel, meals and lodging, and an honorarium. Please feel free to contact us at (505) 473-3985 or 690-5845 or email newdeal@cybermesa.com if you have any questions.

Each local site or organization desirous of having one of the board members of the National New Deal Speakers’ Bureau can contact that individual identified below. The cost of their services and expenses are to be worked out between the speaker and the local site.

 

1.  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.

           Dr. Breiseth was president and CEO of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute located at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, NY from 2001 to 2009. He received his PHD in history at Cornell University, his M.Litt. 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, Pennsylvania 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, Georgia 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 with his wife, Jane, in Ticonderoga, NY. Breiseth can be reached at cnbreiseth@aol.com

 

2.  ALEXANDER HERTEL-FERNANDEZ

Topics: “Social Security from the Perspective of Young Adults”  Questions that will be addressed include: What is the young adult stake in Social Security?  Why should young Americans care about Social Security?  What can be done to both ensure long-run solvency and benefit adequacy of Social Security for future generations? 

 

            “Why is Social Insurance Important for Young Workers? What can be done to shore up and expand our system of social insurance, particularly in light of new risks that workers now face?

 

Biography to be added. He can be reached at ahertel@u.northwestern.edu

 

3.  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 help organize a symposium on the New Deal in Oregon, curated an exhibit celebrating the 75^th 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

 

4.  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.

 

5. 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 the Pennsylvania State University with majors in Graphic Design and Speech Communications he worked in publication design in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., 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

 

6. 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, New Mexico.  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. 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 two books on the subject, assisted on another one  and is working on a newer one to be published soon. They include Treasures on New Mexico Trails: New Deal Art and Architecture  and The New Deal: A 75^th Anniversary Celebration  and assisted with A More Abundant Life.  She can be reached at 505-473-3985 or newdeal@cybermesa.com .

 

7.  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.

 

8.  JAN MARFYAK

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 which focus on the impact abstract expressionists—of which his father was one—had on the New Deal, especially in New Mexico.

 

9.  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 Canada, Great Britain, and South Africa. For more details, visit his faculty page. He can be reached at pfishback@eller.arizona.edu.