Gray A. Brechin (born September 2, 1947) is an American geographer, architectural historian, and author. He is the founder and Project Scholar of

The Living New Deal The Living New Deal is a research project and online public archive documenting the scope and impact of the New Deal on American lives and the national landscape. The project focuses on public works programs, which put millions of unemployed to w ...

based at the U.C. Berkeley Department of Geography. Brechin is a frequent and popular speaker, especially on subjects related to the history and legacy of the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

and the history of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. Brechin is known for his early work on the

Mono Lake Committee The Mono Lake Committee (MLC) is an environmental organization based in Lee Vining, California in the United States. Its mission is to preserve Mono Lake, by reducing diversions of water from the Eastern Sierra watersheds by the Los Angeles Departm ...

to stop the destruction of

Mono Lake Mono Lake ( ) is a saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake which make its water alk ...

by sending its water to Los Angeles. Brechin joined in 1978 as the first director, and lobbied in Sacramento with ecologist David Gaines and other committee members to save the lake. Brechin traveled California giving talks to publicize the lake's plight. In 1992, Brechin and photographer Robert Dawson were awarded the

Lange-Taylor Prize The Lange-Taylor Prize (or Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize) is a prize awarded annually since 1990 by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Durham, NC, to encourage collaboration between documentary writers and photographers. T ...

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

, funding their collaboration on a five-year project that was published in March 1999 as ''Farewell, Promised Land: Waking from the California Dream''. The

San Diego Historical Society The San Diego History Center is a museum showcasing the history of San Diego, located in the city's Balboa Park. Description and history Founded in 1928 by businessman and civic leader George W. Marston, the San Diego Historical Society was h ...

reviewed the book as a necessary reference "to all California environmentalists and policymakers", though its photographs and text focused largely on

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

rather than the whole state. Dawson and Brechin decided in 2002 to write a book documenting the many construction and beautification efforts of the 1930s sponsored by the

programs of President

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

. In 2003, they realized the scope was too large for two people, and in 2006 Brechin created the collaborative project California Living New Deal so that many people could participate as volunteers. Retired software engineer Jay McCauley programmed a database-driven dynamically interactive map for the group. In 2011, the project was enlarged to include all of the United States, dropping the word "California" to become

. The database application was expanded by software engineers from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. By 2020, the website had catalogued some 16,000 sites of New Deal construction and beautification.

Works

* ''Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin'' (1999), University of California Press *''Farewell, Promised Land: Waking from the California Dream'' (with photographer Robert Dawson), (1999) University of California Press. *

References

External links

Gray Brechin, Ph. D. -- Historical Geographer & Author"A look at the New Deal's local legacy"
Episode 73 podcast by East Bay Yesterday 1947 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American geologists Architectural historians New Deal in California {{geologist-stub