WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was the first major unemployment program of the New Deal and one of the most successful of the public works programs authorized by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act in April 1935. The program, under the leadership of Harry Hopkins (1890–1946), provided about 3 million public sector jobs per year to unemployed heads of families. Most WPA workers built libraries, schools, hospitals, playgrounds, airports, bridges, and roads, but the program also employed writers, actors, musicians, and visual artists at jobs in their fields. The concept that the federal government, and not private industry, should create jobs was a sharp departure from conventional policy, and aroused significant controversy. Many objected that the WPA was a handout, joking that its initials really meant "We Putter Around." Some charged that WPA writers and artists were Communist sympathizers who did not deserve a government paycheck. Despite such criticisms, the WPA was a well-managed program that funneled almost 85 percent of its total budget into wages and salaries. From 1935 to its end in 1943, the WPA employed more than 8.5 million people and instituted almost 1.5 million projects, including sewer and road construction, murals in public buildings, written guides to each state, and the Historical Records Survey. Equally important, the program improved morale for millions of jobless Americans.