... Poor work habits and incorrect techniques are not remedied. [63], "The agencies of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration had an enormous and largely unrecognized role in defining the public space we now use", wrote sociologist Robert D. Leighninger. (4) See note 1, at pp. The Division of Professional and Service Projects (called the Division of Women's and Professional Projects in 1937), which was responsible for. This lack of revenue exacerbated problems of library access that were already widespread. [30], This project was directed by Henry Alsberg and employed 6,686 writers at its peak in 1936. The average worker was about 40 years old (about the same as the average family head on relief). It's said that almost every town in the United States has a park, playground, bridge or school that was built during this period as part of a WPA project. Gjenvick Archives: The Future of Our Past, Social and Cultural History. The WPA employed people directly. These men generally lived at home (there were some dormitory arrangements for men who had no home) and worked on roads, dams, and buildings in their own counties. Experience had amply justified this policy," FDR wrote: By building airports, schools, highways, and parks; by making huge quantities of clothing for the unfortunate; by serving millions of lunches to school children; by almost immeasurable kinds and quantities of service the Work Projects Administration has reached a creative hand into every county in this Nation. WPA health education poster about cancer, c. 1936–1938, Poster for the WPA shows various items that can be purchased at the 5 & 10¢ store, WPA poster advertising art classes for children, WPA poster promoting the zoo as a place to visit, showing an elephant, 1936 WPA Poster for Federal Theatre Project presentation, WPA poster encouraging laborers to work for America. In 1936, as outlined in that year's Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, public facilities became a focus; parks and associated facilities, public buildings, utilities, airports, and transportation projects were funded. They set up over 100 art centers around the country that served an estimated eight million individuals. The government wanted to provide new federal cultural support instead of just providing direct grants to private institutions. While those allowances hardly met most family's needs, it kept many families together when coupled with other programs for clothes, medical services, and CCC employment for young men. [citation needed] The strongest attacks were that it was the prelude for a national political machine on behalf of Roosevelt. [31]:494 Additionally, another important part of this project was to record oral histories to create archives such as the Slave Narratives and collections of folklore. These new buildings included 5,900 new schools; 9,300 new auditoriums, gyms, and recreational buildings; 1,000 new libraries; 7,000 new dormitories; and 900 new armories. The Federal Music Project (FMP), part of the Federal government of the United States New Deal program Federal Project Number One, employed musicians, conductors and composers during the Great Depression. The WPA was the largest and most diverse of the New Deal public works programs. By October the state WPA peaked with 55,000 on the rolls. (3) Donald S. Howard, The WPA and Federal Relief Policy, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1943, p. 126. Harry Hopkins was the first (and most well-remembered) administrator of the WPA, serving from July 1935 through December 1938 [1]. By 1940 the WPA Library Project, now the Library Services Program, began to shift its focus as the entire WPA began to move operations towards goals of national defense. [4]:70 Full employment, which was reached in 1942 and emerged as a long-term national goal around 1944, was not the goal of the WPA; rather, it tried to provide one paid job for all families in which the breadwinner suffered long-term unemployment. [3] Hourly wages were typically set to the prevailing wages in each area. Further, the benefits of programs such as the NRA, AAA, and WPA did not outweigh the direct and indirect costs of the New Deal. [5]:56–57 Hallie Flanagan, national director of the Federal Theatre Project, wrote that "for the first time in the relief experiments of this country the preservation of the skill of the worker, and hence the preservation of his self-respect, became important."[12]:17. "[6]:226, Alabama National Guard Armory, Guntersville, Alabama (1936), Prairie County Courthouse, DeValls Bluff, Arkansas (1939), Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California (1933), Santa Ana City Hall, Santa Ana, California (1935), Leon High School, Tallahassee, Florida (1936–37), Government House, St. Augustine, Florida (1937), Boise High School Gymnasium, Boise, Idaho (1936), Midway International Airport, Chicago, Illinois (1935–1939), Gregg Park Bandshell, Vincennes, Indiana (1939), Jenkins Culvert, Gove County, Kansas (1938), Louisville Fire Department Headquarters, Louisville, Kentucky (1936), Alvar Street Branch, New Orleans Public Library (1940), WPA Field House and Pump Station, Scituate, Massachusetts (1938), Detroit Naval Armory, Detroit, Michigan (1936–1939), Brandon Auditorium and Fire Hall, Brandon, Minnesota (1936), Milaca Municipal Hall, Milaca, Minnesota (1936), Upland Auditorium, Upland, Nebraska (1936), Jackie Robinson Play Center, Harlem, New York (1936), LaGuardia Airport, Queens, New York (1937–1939), U.S. Post Office, Rhinebeck, New York (1940), Robeson County Agricultural Building, Lumberton, North Carolina (1937), Emmons County Courthouse, Linton, North Dakota (1934), Timberline Lodge, Mt. And he did. Theater and music groups toured throughout the United States, and gave more than 225,000 performances. Operations in most states ended February 1, 1943. By employing eight millions of Americans, with thirty millions of dependents, it has brought to these people renewed hope and courage. WpA supports and enables this by providing powerful under;ying data that increases the accuracy of the model. First it put a huge percent of the population to work. [30] It is one of the biggest bibliographical efforts and was directed by Dr. Luther H. Evans. The Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt In one of its most famous projects, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. It … [52], The WPA had numerous critics, especially from conservatives. Another 750,000 were person age 65 or over. 274 images documenting the Federal Emergency Relief Administration program in King County, Washington, 1933-35. Occasionally a supervisor or a foreman demands good work. For genealogists, one aspect of the WPA has been especially important. Nationwide projects were sponsored until 1939. Help us create more content like you see here: Sign up for The Fireside, The Lowdown, and other news. Whether the WPA was successful in accomplishing its goals is debatable, but the stories told by the buildings, documents, and historic images are a valuable part of our cultural heritage. Sean Roberts. The WPA years were perhaps the only successful period in American history when fine art and practical art were one and the same. Harry Hopkins testified to Congress in January 1935 why he set the number at 3.5 million, using Federal Emergency Relief Administration data. By 1935, there were 3,500,000 African Americans (men, women and children) on relief, almost 35 percent of the African-American population; plus another 250,000 African-American adults were working on WPA projects. The WPA and CCC built more than 650,000 miles of roads as well as 150,000 schools, airports, hospitals, parks, dams, and other public projects, many of which are still in use today. [23]:295, The WPA mostly operated segregated units, as did its youth affiliate, the National Youth Administration. 7034, under authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. Projects could be rejected anywhere along this three-step process, and were not imposed on local communities by the Federal government. The WPA`s positive results for the public good and its popularity helped Franklin D. Roosevelt to garner a thumping electoral victory in 1936, even though the agency employed no more than about 25 percent of the nation`s jobless. Most projects were initiated, planned and sponsored by states, counties or cities. Notably apolitical—he boasted that he had never voted[62]—he had deflected Congressional criticism of the WPA by bringing attention to its building accomplishments and its role as an employer. Normally, localities had to provide about 12-25% to trigger federal funding of WPA projects [5]. [6]:227 Having languished since the end of World War I, the American military services were depopulated and served by crumbling facilities; when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938, the U.S. Army numbered only 176,000 soldiers. Most are still providing service half a century later. The volume and diversity of work was so large that one researcher wrote at the time: “An enumeration of all the projects undertaken and completed by the WPA during its lifetime would include almost every type of work imaginable…from the construction of highways to the extermination of rats; from the building of stadiums to the stuffing of birds; from the improvement of airplane landing fields to the making of Braille books; from the building of over a million of the now famous privies to the playing of the world’s greatest symphonies” [3]. Bob [Hawley] says if anyone paid him twenty-eight dollars a week while he was loafin' he'd never go to work. President Roosevelt created the WPA on May 6, 1935 with Executive Order No. In 1939, after a federal government reorganization, the Works Progress Administration was renamed the “Work Projects Administration” and was placed under the newly created Federal Works Agency. 2- the project could provide supplementary library services to military camps and defense impacted communities. By that October, the state WPA peaked, with 55,000 workers. (2) Ibid. By December 1941 the number of people employed in WPA library work was only 16,717. [11], The WPA was largely shaped by Harry Hopkins, supervisor of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and close adviser to Roosevelt. The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency, employing millions of job-seekers (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects,[1] including the construction of public buildings and roads. Works Progress Administration (WPA), also called (1939–43) Work Projects Administration, work program for the unemployed that was created in 1935 under U.S. Pres. WPA Library Programs served those goals in two ways: 1- existing WPA libraries could distribute materials to the public on the nature of an imminent national defense emergency and the need for national defense preparation. Before the Great Depression, it was estimated that 1/3 of the population in the United States did not have reasonable access to public library services. Hopkins earlier had left his post, and in 1939 Coan resigned as the state WPA director to return to private business. These performers presented more than 1,000 performances each month to almost one million people, produced 1,200 plays in the four years it was established, and introduced 100 new playwrights. In the Historical Records Survey, for instance, many former slaves in the South were interviewed; these documents are of great importance for American history. Teaching was probably the most successful activity, with as many as fifteen hundred classes conducted throughout the state at … [23]:213, WPA projects were administered by the Division of Engineering and Construction and the Division of Professional and Service Projects. [53], Others complained that far left elements played a major role, especially in the New York City unit. [5]:69, The direct focus of the WPA projects changed with need. A key element in Roosevelt’s New Deal was agencies to create employment by carrying out public works. In 1934 only two states Massachusetts and Delaware provided their total population access to public libraries. [22][24] The goal was to pay the local prevailing wage, but limit the hours of work to 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week; the stated minimum being 30 hours a week, or 120 hours a month. [63], Roosevelt ordered a prompt end to WPA activities to conserve funds that had been appropriated. WPA sometimes took over state and local relief programs that had originated in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) or Federal Emergency Relief Administration programs (FERA). Libraries that existed circulated 1 book per capita. The Division of Engineering and Construction, which planned and supervised construction projects including airports, dams, highways and sanitation systems. As the Second World War approached, and then eventually began, WPA projects became increasingly defense related. The share of Federal Emergency Relief Administration and WPA benefits for African Americans exceeded their proportion of the general population. It varied from $19 per month to $94 per month, with the average wage being about $52.50—$954 in present-day terms. Leaving the nation to work out its problems on its own would just be unacceptable. If the 1928 figure is used as a baseline figure for a study as to whether the New Deal was a success or not, then in all three important areas, Roosevelt did not get back to the 1928 figure. Nationwide projects were sponsored until 1939. "The Road Not Taken: Harry Hopkins and New Deal Work Relief", Larson, Cedric. He predicted there would be 500,000 WPA workers on defense-related projects over the next 12 months, at a cost of $250 million. [21]:494, "Only the WPA, having employed millions of relief workers for more than five years, had a comprehensive awareness of the skills that would be available in a full-scale national emergency," wrote journalist Nick Taylor. Both Roosevelt and Hopkins believed that the route to economic recovery and the lessened importance of the dole would be in employment programs such as the WPA. [30] By January 1939, more than 275 major books and booklets had been published by the FWP. "[6]:228, A joint resolution introduced January 21, 1935,[7] the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 8, 1935. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the stock market and protects investors by making the U.S. financial markets transparent. By 1938 the WPA Library Services Project had established 2300 new libraries, 3400 reading rooms in existing libraries, and 53 traveling libraries for sparsely settled areas. The basic rationale for this change was that the mending and repair projects saved public libraries and school libraries thousands of dollars in acquisition costs while employing needy women who were often heads of households.[37]. An inventory of WPA accomplishments in the Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43  includes 8,000 new or improved parks, 16,000 miles of new water lines, 650,000 miles of new or improved roads, the production of 382 million articles of clothing, and the serving of 1.2 billion school lunches [4]. Critics would point to the fact that Roosevelt's Democrats could be sure of voting support from the South, whereas the West was less of a sure thing; swing states took priority over the other states. This was one of the first relief operations organized under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal designed to provide state assistance for the unemployed who suffered under the Great Depression. Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, House Committee on Un-American Activities, Public Buildings Branch of the Procurement Division, "Presidential Key Events, Franklin D. Roosevelt", "Records of the Work Projects Administration and Its Predecessors", "Executive Order 7034 – Creating Machinery for the Works Progress Administration", "Family Experiences and New Deal Relief: The Correspondence Files of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, 1933–1936", "Records of the Division of Engineering and Construction", "Records of the Division of Professional and Service Projects", "Records of the Division of Investigation", "Records of the Project Control Divisions", "Blazing the Way: The WPA Library Service Demonstration Project in South Carolina by Robert M. Gorman", "New Deal Cultural Programs: Experiments in Cultural Democracy", "A New Deal in Libraries: Federal Relief Work and Library Service, 1933-1943", "Pioneers in the fight for disability rights The League of the Physically Handicapped", "PLEA BY DISABLED PUT TO WPA CHIEF; New York Group, Camping in Washington, Will Consult Williams Again Today", "The Pack Horse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky", "The Book Women of Kentucky: The WPA Pack Horse Library Project, 1936–1943", "Message to Congress on the Reorganization Act", "Fireside Chat 15: On National Defense (May 26, 1940)", "Letter to the Federal Works Administrator Discontinuing the W.P.A. After only one year, over 40,000 artists and other talented workers had been employed through this project in the United States. Of the 2,000 women, all were responsible for one to five additional people in the household. The Arts Service Division created illustrations and posters for the WPA writers, musicians, and theaters. "[59], On December 23, 1938, after leading the WPA for 3.5 years, Harry Hopkins resigned and became the Secretary of Commerce. These original silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were produced between 1936 and 1943 in the District of Columbia and seventeen states: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, M… [30] Cedric Larson stated that "The impact made by the five major cultural projects of the WPA upon the national consciousness is probably greater in toto than anyone readily realizes. "[23]:287 Nationwide in 1940, 9.8% of the population were African American. Representative J. Parnell Thomas of the House Committee on Un-American Activities claimed in 1938 that divisions of the WPA were a "hotbed of Communists" and "one more link in the vast and unparalleled New Deal propaganda network. Department of Geography The last week of service for remaining WPA library workers was March 15, 1943. All its people. The Federal Theatre Project was the first project to end in June 1939 after four years from an end of funding from the federal government. In addition, infrastructure projects included 2,302 stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers; 52 fairgrounds and rodeo grounds; 1,686 parks covering 75,152 acres; 3,185 playgrounds; 3,026 athletic fields; 805 swimming pools; 1,817 handball courts; 10,070 tennis courts; 2,261 horseshoe pits; 1,101 ice-skating areas; 138 outdoor theatres; 254 golf courses; and 65 ski jumps. Instead of providing direct relief, or giving money directly to the needy and expecting nothing in return, work relief programs required recipients to earn the money by performing work for the public benefit. Worker pay was based on three factors: the region of the country, the degree of urbanization, and the individual's skill. However, America was at its economic peak then and after such an economic catastrophe as the Wall Street Crash, it would have bordered on the impossibility for Roosevelt to have got back to the 1928 figure. They were golden threads woven in the national fabric. In this, they shamed the political philosophy that discounted their value and rewarded the one that placed its faith in them, thus fulfilling the founding vision of a government by and for its people. 0 0. Portrait of WPA chief of operations, Eltinge T. Brown, Los Angeles, 1935. On May 6, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

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