Harry Hopkins: Sudden Hero, Brash Performer. The debate over the worthiness of spending public funds on work relief was non-ending. Updates? 13. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Baker, T. Lindsay and Julie P. Baker, eds. Woodward would serve similar functions for the Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the Women's Division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Works Progress Administration (WPA). It was part of his New Deal plan to lift the country out of the Great Depression by reforming the financial system and restoring the economy to pre-Depression levels. If the government kept the workers barely employed on barely sustainable wages they might be prevented from rebellion. The National Youth Administration (NYA) was established in 1935 within the Works Progress Administration. Instead of providing money to sustain someone without a job, work relief programs provided a job, allowing the participant to earn money. And some of us have the only chance we will ever again in our life have to do this job for all the people. Others were involved in arts education and research. 59 views, 0 likes, 0 loves, 2 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from City of Spencer, Iowa: Spencer City Council Meeting from Council Chambers Roosevelt wanted to do away with such forms of relief. While this did not happen, the concern about the potential impact of organized youth was not unfounded. The administrators of the WPA disqualified almost all of them. But it also considered The Federal Project Number One. Williams was well noted for his never-ending efforts of bringing youth and minorities into the New Deal work relief projects. By early 1933, 25 percent of the workforce was unemployed amounting to over 12 million people. At its height in late 1938, more than 3.3 million Americans worked for the WPA. Undeniably, a variety of opinions, including Communist views, were regularly being expressed in America in the 1930s. A major concern regarding "the dole" in the 1930s was the impact on the self-esteem of the recipients. The Federal Writers' Project ( FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was a bold experiment in a time of bold actions. On opening night the cast and crew arrived to a locked theater. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States. In that year increasing charges of mismanagement and of abuse of the program by workers led to a reduction in appropriations, and a strike by construction workers against wage cuts was unsuccessful. He believed direct relief to be debilitating and demoralizing. The WPAwhich in 1939 was renamed the Work Projects Administrationemployed mostly unskilled men to carry out public works infrastructure projects. The National Youth Administration (NYA) was a New Deal agency sponsored by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States that focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25 (Williams, 1937). Hopkins was charged by President Roosevelt with a program designed to move as many people as possible from the relief rolls to WPA jobs, and then on to private employment as quickly possible. Living Newspapers provided a strong example of the controversy found in the expression of ideas in theatrethose very ideas that ultimately led to the demise of the FTP. At its height in late 1938, more than 3.3 million Americans worked for the WPA. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), WPA workers repairing sidewalks. Minneapolis, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1995. I tell you, I have to pinch myself sometimes when I think how some of us have been catapulted into these positions and I will tell you now of the faith and confidence that I have in you, the devotion which you have given to this thing for the past two years and I know I do not have to appeal to this crowd for support. In January 1937 Harry Hopkins provided testimony before a congressional committee. YOUTH ADMINISTRATION, NATIONAL (NYA) was established by executive order on 26 June 1935 as a division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). (pp. With the introduction of the Works Progress Administration in 1935, the PWA and the WPA were constantly battling for funding until the PWA was disbanded in 1939. The relative prosperity allowed many Americans to explore music and plays. It was these programs that were most innovative, most controversial, and of most enduring interest in American history. Many labor shortages reported at the present time are recurring problems which first arose long before the WPA and have continued through the depression. What if the government-sponsored art was bad art? Many people were horrified that the majority of Americans had never heard a symphony or seen a "good" piece of art. It employed approximately six thousand writers, librarians, archivists, and teachers annually. The following quote is from a press conference in the summer of 1935 soon after the program had begun (as quoted in Charles, p. 131). 75 percent of the WPA workforce worked on engineering and construction projects. June's National Industrial Recovery Act guaranteed that workers would have the right to unionize and bargain collectively for higher wages and better working conditions; it also suspended some. Many Americans were horrified by these working and living conditions and the disparity in wealth. After World War II, Pollock became a major figure in the abstract expressionism movement. De Hart, Jane. Even people who supported the idea of the arts and saw work in the arts as real work raised concerns about government-sponsored art. In dong so the WPA quickly came under attack from conservatives in Congress. By the early 1940s, however, the Great Depression was waning as employment in war industries greatly increased. Roosevelt and Hopkins wanted to be sure that the WPA did not compete with private enterprise. By 1935 nearly 500,000 women were employed in work relief involving sewing, gardening and canning, and public healthcare among other activities. Coyle, David C. "The WPALoafers or Workers?" Sculptors created monuments, and actors and musicians were paid to perform. More and more people became unemployed and entire families became homeless. Rich in history, the Narratives provide an important record of a crucial part of American history. Despite his reluctance to continue direct relief, shortly after founding the CCC, Roosevelt established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan and Matt Mullen. The experience of the depression has proved that the American people still want jobs. The Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Art Project, the Federal Music Project, the Federal Writers' Project and the Historical Records Survey were, variously, praised and criticized, and always controversial. Cultural events should not be artificially divided between "high" culture for the wealthy and sophisticated and "low" culture for the masses. On September 28, 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt described his perspective of WPA projects at Timberline Lodge on the upper slopes Mt. The conservatives saw the appropriate role of the government as being limited and carefully defined. Workers were often portrayed as lazy or inept. Later it added the one-act play unit, dance theatre, the Theater for the Blind, marionette theatre, a Yiddish vaudeville unit, a German unit, an Anglo-Jewish theater, and the Radio Division, among other groups. Artists painted thousands of pictures, and made thousands of posters and sculptures. As a result accusations of "communism" grew toward the end of the 1930s. Triple-A Plowed Under called for farmers and consumers to work together against greedy middlemen at a time when millions did not have enough to eat, and food rotted in warehouses because no one could afford to pay for it. Do Americans really like to work, or would they rather loaf? It was one of a group of New Deal arts programs known collectively as . The movement toward work relief programs that became the Works Progress Administration was most directly a result of the unemployment, poverty, and homelessness caused by the Great Depression. In 1931 New York Governor Roosevelt appointed the former social worker as the executive director of the New York State Temporary Emergency Relief Administration. Initially denied an education, Bethune became a proponent of the value of education in elevating black Americans. Bold, Christine. Flanagan asserted that for theatre to be good, it had to push accepted standards. In addition many women had children at home and were not available for full-time employment. PWAP was not designed strictly as a work relief project. This alone was very controversial. "Admit you are powerless before the word," said Francine Prose, and I've read works-in-progress that has taken my breath away, either in total, or a paragraph, or a scene, or even simply one perfectly-chosen word, and sometimes these moments come from the student you'd least expect to . In response to this criticism of the FAP art, President Roosevelt responded that though some were good and others were not, it all reflected Americans' perceptions of their nation and the people in it. Socialists and Communists felt that the WPA was a way of preventing a more basic change in U.S. society, and states-rights advocates felt that the federal government was taking away authority that rightly belonged to the states. As an With the audience beginning to line up outside the closed theater, an alternative theater 21 blocks away was found. The WPA also sponsored the National Youth Administration, which sought part-time jobs for young people. The committee searched for communist influence the WPA projects. Aside from his contributions to archiving and documenting America, Evans worked in opposition to censorship and made significant contribution to the world of libraries and librarianship. I look forward to the day when many, many people from this region of the Nation are going to come here for skiing and tobogganing and various other forms of winter sports. Young people who were out of school could work 70 hours a month for no more than $25 a month. Flanagan wanted the theatre to be as broad and courageous as the American mind. which of the following was a criticism of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)? Aubrey Williams (18901965). Like many other FTP productions, Triple-A Plowed Under was a great success, but was criticized as Communist propaganda because of its themes of hunger and starvation. Many writers who were employed by the Federal Writers' Project would go on to become famous including Ralph Ellison, John Cheever, Conrad Aiken, Richard Wright, Saul Bellow, Studs Terkel, Dorothy West, and Zora Neale Hurston. This small group of men and women became known as the "Black Cabinet.". Following his inauguration as President of the United States in March 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (served 19331945) initiated a series of work relief programs that culminated in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935. As head of the NYA Division of Negro Affairs, Bethune was the highest-ranking black person in the New Deal. "Legacies of the New Deal," in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Here, to Mount Hood, will come thousands and thousands of visitors in the coming years . Woodward served as a top administrator of the Mississippi State Board of Development from 1926 to 1933. They built almost 600,000 miles in new roads and repaired 32,000 miles of existing roads. The. The WPA artist, in rendering his own impression of things, speaks also for the spirit of his fellow countrymen everywhere. HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. Many criticized the wages as insufficient and a punishment for being jobless. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the WPA with an executive order on May 6, 1935. In 1926 she became the second woman in history to serve in Mississippi's legislature. Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal. As weapons production for World War II began ramping up and unemployment dropped, the federal government decided a national relief program was no longer needed. These programs employed artists, musicians, actors and writers. Communists had taken over Russia, forming the Soviet Union. The FWP sent thousands of writers out to talk with American Indians, frontier women, Appalachian miners, and other individuals from various cultural groups around the United States. Historic Events for Students: The Great Depression. Charles, Searle F. Minister of Relief: Harry Hopkins and the Depression. What I need to do is to be sure that I can keep up with you in the kind of service you have been giving to this nation in the past two years. Following a difficult childhood that led to him leave home at age of 13, Cahill moved to New York City to become a journalist. Kazacoff, George. They placed special emphasis on the Federal Writers' Project and the Federal Theatre Project. Although critics called the WPA an extension of the dole or a device for creating a huge patronage army loyal to the Democratic Party, the stated purpose of the program was to provide useful work for millions of victims of the Great Depression and thus to preserve their skills and self-respect. largely to take over some responsibilities of the FERA, the PWA, and the CWA. Notable examples include the Hoover Dam, the John Adams Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and the San Francisco Mint. At a time when millions of Americans were without jobs because of the Great Depression, the WPA provided jobs and the wages that come with jobs. One of the most popular productions was the Negro Unit's production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, directed by Orson Welles. Updated: September 21, 2022 | Original: July 13, 2017. American stage. Is it true that WPA workers cling to their soft snap and refuse to take jobs in private employment? Some politicians criticized the WPA for its inefficiencies. These highly-educated administrators tended to view blue-collar workers as an undifferentiated mass, and made little attempt to understand the subtleties of skills or job requirements. The answer to both questions was the WPA.. He felt that reliefoften called direct relief, or "the dole," as in "being on the dole"was detrimental to morale and to self-respect. This would mean that starting with 2,200,000 Works Progress Administration workers in February, we should ordinarily expect a decline of about 340,000 workers, leaving 1,860,000 on Works Progress Administration projects during June. Hopkins was a proponent of work relief and the potential of the government to improve people's lives. school. The cultural work relief programs gave voice to the America of the timeangry, scared, defiant. Brinkley, Alan. This serious unemployment situation which has stunned the Nation for the past year and a half has brought to our attention in a most vivid fashion the need for some sort of relief to protect those men and women who are willing to work but who through no fault of their own cannot find employment. Americans were increasingly organizing to fight for improvements in their daily lives. In response to the challenge to address the needs of these youth, the NYA developed a residential work program. The Works Progress Administration established a number of projects to provide work relief to artists, musicians, writers, and actors. It provided employment as a way to help Americans (rather than offering direct payments). One form of the challenge was the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, later known as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Small concessions, such as work relief, delayed the revolution. From 1922 to 1929 six million families42 percent of the families in the United Statesmade less than $1,000 a year. Harry Hopkins, who had headed the state organization under Roosevelt, now headed FERA. Roosevelt had wrestled with poverty and joblessness as governor of New York, implementing a number of innovative programs that would become models for future federal programs. Most workers had no insurance. And it was called the Works Progress Administration (renamed the Work Project Administration (WPA) in 1939). During its eight-year existence, the WPA put some 8.5 million people to work (over 11 million were unemployed in 1934) at a cost to the federal government of approximately $11 billion. In 1939 the Works Progress Administration altered its name to Work Projects Administration. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Track course progress. Flanagan believed that theatre should both educate and entertain. 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