Works Progress Administration (WPA) builds roads, bridges, airports, public buildings, and other infrastructure (1 gen 1935 anni – 1 gen 1943 anni)

Descrizione:

WPA: Federal New Deal program established in 1935 that provided government-funded public works jobs to millions of unemployed Americans in areas ranging from construction to the arts. (

FDR was never enthusiastic about public relief programs. But with the election of 1936 on the horizon and 10 million Americans still out of work, he won funding for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Under the energetic direction of Harry Hopkins, the WPA employed 8.5 million Americans between its establishment in 1935 and 1943. The agency’s workers constructed or repaired 651,087 miles of road, 124,087 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks, and 853 airports. An entire division of the agency promoted cultural programs and the arts, hiring tens of thousands of writers, poets, painters, playwrights, muralists, and others to create original works of art and to promote the varied regional cultures of ordinary Americans, from rural southern African American music to urban immigrant folkways in northern cities, and a great deal in between. The WPA was a massive program yet still only reached about one-third of the nation’s unemployed.

As the 1936 election approached, the Democratic Party had a broad base of support. Many voters had personally benefitted from programs such as the WPA, or knew people who had (Table 22.2). One was Jack Reagan, a down-on-his-luck shoe salesman (and the father of future president Ronald Reagan), who took a job as a federal relief administrator in Dixon, Illinois, and became a strong supporter of the New Deal. Roosevelt could count on a powerful coalition of organized labor, midwestern farmers, white ethnic groups, northern African Americans, and middle-class families anxious about their savings, homes, and retirement. He also commanded the support of intellectuals and progressive Republicans. With some difficulty — mainly because of rising calls for racial justice among some New Dealers — the Democrats maintained their white southern constituency as well.

TABLE 22.2

Major New Deal Legislation
Agriculture
1933

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

1935

Resettlement Administration (RA)

Rural Electrification Administration (REA)

1937

Farm Security Administration (FSA)

1938

Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938

Finance and Industry
1933

Emergency Banking Act

Glass-Steagall Act (created the FDIC)

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)

1934

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

1935

Banking Act of 1935

Revenue Act (wealth tax)

Conservation and the Environment
1933

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act

Labor and Social Welfare
1933

Section 7(a) of NIRA

1935

National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)

National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)

Social Security Act

1937

National Housing Act

1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
Relief and Reconstruction
1933

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)

Civil Works Administration (CWA)

Public Works Administration (PWA)

1935

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

National Youth Administration (NYA)

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