Employment: U.S. Works Progress Administration

The Great Depression in the United States began with the stock market crash in October 1929 and lasted until the early 1940s. The unprecedented economic collapse left 25% of the nation’s workforce unemployed, with some cities seeing unemployment rates as high as 50%. To help combat the staggering unemployment statistics and stimulate the economy, the federal government embarked on a series of economic measures known as the New Deal.

On May 6, 1935, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the best-known of several relief programs implemented as part of the Emergency Relief Appropriations (ERA) Act.

Under the WPA, more than 8 million unemployed Americans were put to work building and repairing roads, parks, bridges, airports, and buildings all across the United States in exchange for temporary financial assistance. The WPA also gave actors, writers, and other creative artists work through federally funded plays, publications, and public arts projects, such as adorning public buildings with decorative murals and sculptures. Private enterprise was protected from competition with WPA projects by a provision of the ERA Act that imposed wage and price controls on federally sponsored products or services.

Congressional opponents of the New Deal had succeeded in scaling back WPA funding in the years leading up to World War II. A surge in U.S. defense industry production in the early 1940s fueled the nation’s economy, and by 1943 Congress suspended many of the relief programs initiated under the ERA act, including the WPA. By the time it ceased, the WPA had spent more than $11 million to fund employment relief.

The WPA paid low wages, which varied widely based on work geographic region, and was unable to employ every jobless citizen. Among those who were most often overlooked by the program were women and minorities, including Deaf workers.