During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt introduced the New Deal, including the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, which created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and other employment programs. The WPA employed millions of Americans in public works projects, arts, and literacy programs. The Federal Art Project, a branch of the WPA, employed artists to create posters and murals and teach art. The Federal Writers’ Project created state guides and defended leftist views. WPA employees later received training for factory jobs during World War II before funding stopped.
During the Great Depression, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a series of programs, laws, and other economic stimuli to help get the country back on its feet. Roosevelt called this course of action the New Deal, and as part of the New Deal, Congress passed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. This act passed on April 8, 1935, created several government employment programs aimed at making return to work Americans.
One of the agencies created by the law was the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The largest of the New Deal agencies, the WPA has employed millions of Americans and put them to work building roads and bridges, erecting buildings, and working on other public works projects. Additionally, WPA employees spent time feeding hungry children and distributing goods such as clothing to families in need. This Emergency Relief Appropriation Act program also created literacy and arts programs, as well as media, arts, and theater programs. At one point, the WPA was the largest employer in the country.
The Federal Art Project was another branch of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act that fell under the auspices of the WPA. The main goal of this project was to employ out-of-work artists to create posters and murals for non-government agencies such as schools or hospitals. This short-lived program put artists to work both creating and researching art, as well as teaching it within the community.
Similarly, the Federal Art Project, another branch of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act under the auspices of the WPA, employed thousands of people to research and write. A major project was the creation of state guides for all U.S. states, as well as territories at the time. These guides outlined the history, culture, and descriptions of both the state as a whole and individual cities and towns. As the FWP progressed, some writing turned political, as many felt leftist views needed to be defended as rightist criticisms of Roosevelt’s policies became prevalent.
As the country began to emerge from the Great Depression in the early 1940s, WPA employees began preparing for factory jobs instead of many of the other pursuits they had been pursuing for years. Since World War II had just begun, the government thought this training would prepare the country for the stresses placed on the factories. Eventually, as unemployment fell and the war effort increased, funding for the WPA stopped.
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