5/6【历史上的今天】New Deal里的Works Progress Administration

美国历史上的今天

Works Progress Administration

每天一篇《美国历史上的今天》，提炼和总结历史在今天发生的重要事件：谁，在哪里，什么时候，做了什么，这件事为什么重要、以及在写关于什么主题的论文的时候可以作为潜在论据引用。

每天半分钟，轻松积累史实

为AP历史拿5分打下坚实基础

When: May 5, 1935

What: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Why significant: The WPA was one of many Great Depression relief programs created under the auspices of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which Roosevelt had signed the month before. The WPA, the Public Works Administration (PWA) and other federal assistance programs put unemployed Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance. Out of the 10 million jobless men in the U.S. in 1935, 3 million were helped by WPA jobs alone.

While FDR believed in the elementary principles of justice and fairness, he also expressed disdain for doling out welfare to otherwise able workers. So, in return for monetary aid, WPA workers:

  • built highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. They restored theaters and built the ski lodge at Oregon’s Mt. Hood

  • The WPA also put actors, writers and other creative arts professionals back to work by sponsoring federally funded plays, art projects.

FDR safeguarded private enterprise from competition with WPA projects by including a provision in the act that placed wage and price controls on federally funded products or services.

Opponents of the New Deal in Congress gradually pared back WPA appropriations in the years leading up to World War II. By 1940, the economy was roaring back to life with a surge in defense-industry production and, in 1943, Congress suspended many of the programs under the ERA Act, including the WPA.

Tags: Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt,  New Deal

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