The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a New Deal agency that aimed to provide jobs for unemployed Americans by constructing public buildings, roads, and other structures. It spent nearly $19 billion between 1936 and 1939 and was a major factor in reinvigorating the American economy after the Great Depression. The WPA also focused on the arts, education, and aid for children and those in need, and provided relief for women and African Americans. The program ended in 1943 due to the need to finance the World War II war effort.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a United States government agency founded during the New Deal era in the late 1930s. It was funded by mandate from Congress and ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt as an effort to hire millions of unemployed Americans for the purpose of constructing public buildings, roads, and other structures. An estimate by the government itself states that nearly 1939 billion US dollars (USD) was spent between 7 and 1936 alone. As part of the New Deal, many historians cite the creation of the WPA as a major motivating factor in reinvigorating the American economy after the 1929 stock market crash and subsequent Great Depression. The program lasted until 1943, when the United States was forced to make domestic cuts to finance the World War II war effort.
After the economic crisis of the 1930s began, President Herbert Hoover attempted to stimulate a financial recovery of the American economy through the passage of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932. The purpose of this program was to stimulate the private sector by earning $2 billion USD in loans available to businesses. In the late 1930s, the succeeding administration decided that more investment was needed to provide jobs for the nation’s unemployed. The Works Progress Administration has focused on building and helping with projects across the nation, particularly in rural areas.
Some of the many projects overseen by the Works Progress Administration included a strong focus on the arts, education and training, as well as aid for children and those in need. It also worked to bring the media to the masses and teach more Americans to read. Additional training programs have been implemented to retrain workers for the jobs of the future and occupations that would benefit society. Other programs, notably the National Youth Administration, a subagency, focused on assisting children across the country, many of whom were orphaned or abandoned and lived in squalid conditions in both rural and urban areas.
One of the great advances the Works Progress Administration provided was relief for women and single mothers as well as African Americans, both disproportionately affected by the Great Depression. Many women were also forced during the period to take the place of breadwinners for the household. According to statistics at the time, a large percentage of men were disabled or too old to work during that time. Additionally, the African-American population was subjected to the same standards in the hiring process as their white counterparts. While this angered many civil rights activists at the time, it was historically one of the first times the population was offered equality in the workplace.
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