4/8【历史上的今天】罗斯福的Emergency Relief Appropriation Act

美国历史上的今天

Emergency Relief Appropriation Act

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: April 8, 1935

What: President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized almost $5 million to implement work-relief programs.

Why significant: Hoping to lift the country out of the Great Depression, Congress allowed the president to use the funds at his discretion. The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act was unprecedented and remains the largest system of public-assistance relief programs in the nation’s history.

One of the most notable federal agencies FDR created with the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act was the Works Progress Administration, one of several New Deal programs FDR hoped would relieve chronic and widespread unemployment. The WPA, the Public Works Administration (PWA) and other federal-assistance programs created by the act put Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance.

Workers with the WPA built highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. The WPA also put actors, writers and other creative-arts professionals back to work by sponsoring federally funded plays and art projects.

From 1935, FDR lobbied Congress annually to continue funding the ERA Act. In total, the act allocated approximately $880 million in federal funds and created millions of jobs, although historians disagree about the long-term value of most of the WPA’s projects. In 1940, the economy roared back to life with the surge in defense-industry production and, in 1943, Congress suspended many of the programs under the ERA Act, including the WPA and the PWA.

Tags: Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Emergency Relief Appropriation Act