WPA is the Works Progress Administration. It is the largest job initiative ever created in the United States, a division of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. From 1935 to 1943, $10.5 billion was spent employing 8.5 million Americans. The Depression and unemployment left millions of Americans homeless, hungry, and wandering the country in search of work. The WPA aimed at relieving Suffering Americans.
An evaluation of the country’s infrastructure by Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, who headed the WPA, found unpaved roads, outdated bridges, inadequate water and sewage treatment centers, erosion and deforestation of the National Parks, and a need for help when disaster struck. Job programs were created for all these projects. Additionally, workers were needed to build schools, hospitals, and airports.
The WPA also gave jobs to teachers, artists, musicians, writers, nurses, and doctors. The adult literacy rate improved, children were vaccinated, free plays and concerts entertained millions, guides to city and state landmarks were written, oral histories of former slaves were recorded, and murals painted. And as part of the war effort, the WPA trained workers to help meet demands of WWII. Military bases were repaired and armories built.
Despite the positive intention of the WPA, there was Conservative objections to its projects. wastefulness and inefficiency were two themes of WPA objection.
Roosevelt To Make Jobs For 3,500,000 Now On Relief; Pushes His Social Program
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