Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (later Works Projects Administration , abbreviated WPA ) was the largest federal agency in the United States that was created as part of the New Deal . It was designed as a job creation agency for the millions of unemployed during the Great Depression .
history
The WPA was launched on May 6, 1935 with Executive Order 7034 and was subsequently headed by Harry Hopkins . She mainly hired workers and craftsmen, who were then mostly employed in road construction. Under the leadership of the WPA, more than a million kilometers of roads and tens of thousands of bridges were built, as well as numerous airfields and residential buildings.
The largest single project of the WPA was the Tennessee Valley Authority , which provided the impoverished Tennessee Valley with barrages and hydropower plants, making the region the largest electricity supplier in the USA to this day. The US Presidents ' country residence , Camp David in Maryland , was also built by the WPA.
The Federal One division also hired unemployed intellectuals and artists to work in various programs whose work was intended to benefit the common good and the nation:
- Federal Writers' Project (FWP)
- Historical Records Survey (HRS)
- Federal Theater Project (FTP)
- Federal Music Project (FMP)
- Federal Art Project (FAP)
For example, numerous former slaves in the southern states were interviewed on behalf of the Historical Records Survey ; these documents are of great importance to American history. Theater and music groups toured the American province, bringing it to more than 225,000 performances. The WPA archaeological excavations have been influential in exploring pre-Columbian Indian cultures and developing professional archeology in the United States .
On December 4, 1943, the WPA was dissolved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt because the United States' entry into World War II at the end of 1941 and the subsequent boom in the American armaments industry had led to a sudden drop in unemployment.
