While the FTP had regional groups and tour groups that played widely, the center for theater was New York, and it was in New York that the FTP was most innovative. From 1936 to 1944 she held the position of Director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, making her the first black American woman to become a federal agency head. Harry Hopkins, who had been chief of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Civil Works Administration during 1933 and 1934 . people whom you have known all your life, fine hardworking, upstanding men and women who have gone overboard and been caught up in this. They are carpenters, bricklayers, artisans, architects, engineers, clerks, stenographers, doctors, dentists, farmers, ministers.". There is a reserve of millions of unemployed, outside the WPA, to which industry can turn. The Social Security Act for the first time established an economic . Others were involved in arts education and research. Take a look at them, if you have not, and see who they are. The Federal Theatre Project was disbanded immediately. The early 1930s were a tumultuous time. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. The men would be employed on projects requiring little investment, such as cleaning neighborhoods and digging drainage ditches. But the public also suspects that government workers are being causal with the public's money. The Committee made much of the political messages in plays by the FTP and the art of the FAP. He was going to singthe play was a musicalall the roles since the cast had been ordered not to appear on stage. The Federal Theatre Project (FTP) was the most controversial of the Federal One projects. FERA provided direct financial aid to the unemployed. The explosion in art during the Great Depression has been compared to a similar explosion during the Renaissance in Europe that coincidentally was also supported by government funds. The debate over the worthiness of spending public funds on work relief was non-ending. Which of the following was a criticism of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)? Researchers studied the effects of relief and unemployment on workers. In 1938 Representatives Martin Dies and J. Parnell Thomas began hearings on the projects of Federal One. ", In the past few days I have inspected many great governmental activitiesparks and soil protection sponsored by the Works Progress Administration; buildings erected with the assistance of the Public Works Administration; our oldest and best-known National Park, the Yellowstone, under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service; great irrigation areas fathered by the Reclamation Service; and a few hours ago a huge navigation and power dam built by the Army engineers . It was for these carpenters, bricklayers, and artisans that the WPA was developed, but one unique aspect of it went beyond traditional workers. He believed that the low wages were to be used as a tool to break up the unions. Aubrey Williams (18901965). 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. The WPA had many supporters, particularly those personally helped by the program. From 1935 to 1943 the WPA provided millions of people with work and money during a very difficult time, however, it was never able to reach more than about one third of those eligible to receive its benefits. The WPA was a large and comprehensive organization. Many of the discussions about government-sponsored art are still held today, as controversial artists receive government grants, or have government grants repealed. These programs employed 250,000 workers. The youth would clean, cook, and study and work. The FTP was led by Hallie Flanagan, former head of the Vassar College Experimental Theatre and former classmate of Harry Hopkins at Grinnell College. The cultural work relief programs gave voice to the America of the timeangry, scared, defiant. The work was sometimes wonderful, often bad, and occasionally very critical of America, capitalism, and the government. Some felt that much of the work was make-work. It employed approximately six thousand writers, librarians, archivists, and teachers annually. The act of critiquing also reminds us to be humble. Born in Oxford, Mississippi, Woodward's father was a U.S. 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. The WPA as a federally administered work relief program was a huge undertaking. New York City: De Capo Press, 1974. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 1994. YOUTH ADMINISTRATION, NATIONAL (NYA) was established by executive order on 26 June 1935 as a division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). On the one hand the U.S. public needs them to deliver the mail and process the passports. The problems with effectively using workers' skills and identifying appropriate projects, however, were largely resolved in the first year or so. 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 Viewing the situation from another angle, our studies of the seasonal variation in relief show that the number usually declines about 15 per cent from February to June. There is hardly a personwho does not know of an intimate friend, As she was quoting Marlowe, one of the congressmen interrupted her to ask who Marlowe was and whether he was a Communist. Liberals deplored the low wages of the WPA. Everyone one of us in this room is being paid for by the nation, they pay us, we work for all the people. The administrators of the WPA disqualified almost all of them. Youth were strictly supervised and taught "how to live" as well as how to make a living. The New Deal's WPA was most importantly a work relief program. Research what buildings, art projects, theatre productions or other WPA project impacted your community. One of the most important oral histories collected by the FWP writers were the stories of former slaves. De Hart, Jane. As a result accusations of "communism" grew toward the end of the 1930s. Encyclopedia.com. The Lasting Values of the WPA: The Social Welfare History Project, Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries. The WPAwhich in 1939 was renamed the Work Projects Administrationemployed mostly unskilled men to carry out public works infrastructure projects. Others raised concerns about the employment by the federal government of such a large number of people. Small concessions, such as work relief, delayed the revolution. This was done even though astronomical unemployment percentages (well into the double digits) indicated that private sector jobs were unavailable. Employing almost seven thousand writers, researchers, and librarians in its peak year of 1936, the FWP sought to document many aspects of American life. They wanted everyone to be able to enjoy a good Shakespeare play or to see a Rembrandt. More and more people became unemployed and entire families became homeless. They wanted black American women to be available to work as maids and cooks in white people's homes for low wages. wages, the Roosevelt Administration was in fact delaying recovery. Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. The Coming of the New Deal. Flanagan, with the support of Hopkins, designed an incredibly ambitious program for the FTP. By choosing to apply for a position within the Works Progress Administration, applicants were indicating that their situation was such that they required the wages to survive. Previous New Deal work relief programs had been left largely to the states to administer. The conservatives believed that not only was this unfair, but by taxing the people we were depending on to expand their business though investment, new economic growth was being deterred. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. While the gallery laughed, the damage to the Federal Theatre Project from the hearings was done. Minneapolis, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1995. Federal Theatre Project. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. I am proud to do this job with you and I want you to be proud to do it with me. That success was largely due to Mary McLeod Bethune. The artists it employed included some who were not on the relief rolls. Millions of Americans attended free concerts and plays, learned to paint, and saw "professional" art. In each of the eleven localities covered in the Fortune survey, a board of local citizens was set up to rate the WPA workers and relief recipients as to employability. President Roosevelt's works progress administration of 1935 considered many infrastructure programs for the benefit of the U.S. citizens. Traditional conservatives included the Liberty League and many Republicans who saw the WPA as a means of undermining the capitalist system. Even many among the more financially well off believed that both morality and practicality required a more equal approach to wealth and the benefits it accorded. The Narratives document their experiences as slaves, their recollections of the stories about their history as told to them by their ancestors, and their memories of newly won freedom. The WPA was designed to provide relief for the unemployed by providing jobs and income for millions of Americans. They'd better be, for it takes a long time to get America straightened out. About half of the workers were involved in the direct creation of art. On May 6, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Edsforth, Ronald. (pp. The astonishing thing is that so little trace of lost morale can be found in the records. The program provided homes for the youth in dormitory-type housing, education and training opportunities, and employment. In 1933 they had set up the Public Works Art Project (PWAP), under the administration of the Treasury Department. Williams served as head of the NYA until 1943 when it stopped operation. La Vere, David. Social welfare programs belonged most appropriately to the states, conservatives felt, and the Roosevelt Administration was fundamentally changing the balance of power between the states and the federal government. In the course of his journalism studies he became friends with artists in his Greenwich Village neighborhood. A significant number had become homeless and hoboes. Dangerous Theatre: The Federal Theatre Project as a Forum For New Plays. Great Depression program still benefiting Americans today: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Given this new outlook many in the Roosevelt Administration felt that the United States couldand had a moral obligation toprovide relief for its citizenry. By 1936 the Federal Art Project employed more than six thousand artists. Almost every corner of the United States realized some improvement due to the WPA workers. It was Olive Stanton, the actress who was to sing the opening song. And it was called the Works Progress Administration (renamed the Work Project Administration (WPA) in 1939). In the wake of the hearings, Congress passed the 1940 Emergency Relief Appropriations Act. It created unneccessary projects just to employ people. While the Roosevelt Administration faced significant criticism and challenges regarding the WPA, and the program did not, in fact, last very long. The WPA Guides: Mapping America. At its height in late 1938, more than 3.3 million Americans worked for the WPA. A means test was given to possible aid recipients to measure their level of need in order to determine if they were eligible for relief. Are they tramps? Impatient Armies of the Poor: The Story of Collective Action of the Unemployed, 18081942. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was an ambitious employment and infrastructure program created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, during the bleakest days of the Great Depression. The largest number of people in WPA was employed in engineering and construction projects where most of the money from the WPA was directed. The extraordinary contribution of the WPA workers significantly improved the infrastructure of the United States within a relatively short time. He was later to serve as librarian of Congress and director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The WPA also sponsored the National Youth Administration, which sought part-time jobs for young people. In early 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President of the United States. The unemployed organized to fight for jobs, and tenants organized to fight for better housing. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. It also took an innovative approach to including cultural expression into its employment program. Called The Cradle Will Rock, it became caught in the controversy regarding the FTP. Melosh, Barbara. The investigations of complaints turn up a surprisingly small number of actual cases of laziness or even of unwillingness to leave the WPA for the risks of private employment. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. which of the following was a criticism of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)? New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1988. The WPA - which in 1939 was renamed the Work Projects Administration - employed mostly unskilled men to carry out public works infrastructure projects. A children's play about beavers fighting the human destroyer of their dam was considered to support workers rising up against business owners. The FERA was created on May 12, 1933, by the Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933, and President Roosevelt chose Harry Hopkins to be the administrator [1]. The WPA offered projects targeted at unemployed artists, musicians, writers and actors. 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. Mary McLeod Bethune (18751955). Normally, there is a seasonal increase of about 800,000 private jobs during these 5 months; but an increase of from 1,200,000 to 1,500,000 private jobs will probably be necessary to remove 600,000 persons from the W.P.A. New York City: Peter Lang Publishing, 1989. PWAP was the forerunner to Federal One, however, and reflected the belief of Roosevelt and Hopkins that even singers and dancers deserved work relief appropriate to their occupation. During the earliest days of the WPA there were problems effectively allocating workers and choosing projects. President Roosevelt's goal was to provide employment to individuals currently on direct relief. Only three months earlier an historical demonstration took place as the poor marched on Washington, DC, in the National Hunger March. Each industry itself likewise should bear a part of the premium for this insurance, and the State, in the interest of its own citizens, and to prevent a recurrence of the widespread hardship of these days, should at least supervise its operation. In 1935, the WPA employed approximately 350,000 Black Americans, about 15 percent of its total workforce. Works Progress Administration. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 1976. If the pace of criticism is urgent and may demand immediate action, critique can be slow and indirect, and often raises more questions than it answers. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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). Despite his reluctance to continue direct relief, shortly after founding the CCC, Roosevelt established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Residential program participants would stay in the centers, learn a trade, and then return home only to discover again that there were no jobs. At its height, Federal One employed 5,300 visual artists and related professionals. Roosevelt intended Federal One (as it was known) to put artists back to work while entertaining and inspiring the larger population by creating a hopeful view of life amidst the economic turmoil. New York: St. Marin's Press, 1999. The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives. These estimates are based on studies of our past experience during periods of reemployment, which indicate that the creation of two and one-half new jobs in private industry results in the removal of one family head from relief or from the W.P.A. But it wasn't. It was built by the PWA, the Public Works Administration. The best known and most lasting of the works of art created under FAP were the murals painted in public buildings across the nation. Swain, Marsha H. Ellen S. Woodward: New Deal Advocate for Women. With this amount it would be possible to employ 2,200,000 on Works Progress Administration projects in February; 2,150,000 in March; 2,000,000 in April; 1,800,000 in May; and 1,600,000 in June. Women engaged in sewing projects made up about seven percent of the national WPA workforce. In the first few months of his presidency Roosevelt introduced the New Deal, a vast array of federal social and economic programs to bring relief to the struggling nation. London and New York: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. Hopkins was a social worker with years of experience directing relief and work relief programs, many of those years for Roosevelt in New York. The WPA artist, in rendering his own impression of things, speaks also for the spirit of his fellow countrymen everywhere. Federal Cultural Programs of the 1930s: Websters World of Cultural Democracy. Are they hoboes and ne'erdowells? Called the American Guide Series, many of the volumes are available in re-prints, and remained a valuable guide to important sites within the United States decades later. WPA construction projects sometimes ran three to four times the cost of private work. Hopkins later served as Secretary of Commerce for Roosevelt from 1938 to 1940 and in various other roles throughout World War II. New York City: Henry Holt and Company, 1999. In addition, the residential centers provided cultural enrichment programs. The Roosevelt Administration had intentionally kept wages below those in the private sector, and often below poverty level, in order to avoid making employment for the WPA preferable to employment in private industry. Fewer Americans were self-employed and more worked in factories. The WPA arts programs led to the later creation of the National Foundation of the Arts. It was these programs that were most innovative, most controversial, and of most enduring interest in American history. But as the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities began to investigate the WPA and ultimately disband the FTP, the concern of government-sponsored art was raised anew. In the early years of the Great Depression Williams returned to the South where he coordinated activities of President Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation in bringing economic relief to people of Texas and Mississippi. A civilized society provided for its people. Increasingly many saw the enjoyment of art and music as a fundamental requirement of a civilized society. Hopkins was an advocate of relief programs that provided work for the unemployed and trained the unskilled. In comparison Adolph Hitler was Chancellor of Germany and beginning his rise in Europe. President Roosevelt had a strong belief in the possibilities afforded by appropriate exercise of the powers of the federal government, but without the arrival of the Great Depression his activism would likely have taken a different form. Mitchell believed that the low wages of the WPA represented a surrender of the U.S. Government to big business. However, the Works Progress Administration's was highly criticized for its creation of artistic and infrastructure jobs because people felt the program gave too much power to the . Undeniably, a variety of opinions, including Communist views, were regularly being expressed in America in the 1930s. During the 1920s and 1930s, many Americans and, in fact, people all over the world had begun to advocate for more accessible culture. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. WPA arts programs drew frequent criticism from Congress and the lay public. It was with this belief in the universal importance of art and music that programs such as the WPA's cultural programs for artists, musicians, writers, and actors would take root. But it also considered The Federal Project Number One. Gustaitis, Joseph. Republicans and conservative Democrats were challenging New Deal programs and Roosevelt himself. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States. Roosevelt, Franklin D. The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Great Depression had been steadily worsening for over three years by Roosevelt's inauguration. (6) Works Progress Administration, Analysis of Civil Works Program Statistics, Washington, DC, 1939, pp. Do Americans really like to work, or would they rather loaf? An Ornery Bunch: Tales and Anecdotes Collected by the WPA Montana Writers' Project, 19351942. Here, to Mount Hood, will come thousands and thousands of visitors in the coming years . Toward the end of the hearings, Hallie Flanagan, director of the Federal Theatre Project was called to testify. Final Report on the WPA Program, 19351943. "Democratizing Culture," in The New Deal: Problems in American Civilization, David E. Hamilton (ed.) To that end they were proponents of eliminating the means test for qualifying for work relief. By early 1933, 25 percent of the workforce was unemployed amounting to over 12 million people. In response to the challenge to address the needs of these youth, the NYA developed a residential work program. Marshall, Will Geer, Burt Lancaster, and John Houseman. Demeaning visits by social workers to prove one was sufficiently poor were not necessary. The Federal Writers' Project also undertook a major effort in compiling oral histories. 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. They placed special emphasis on the Federal Writers' Project and the Federal Theatre Project. The concepts of work and welfare and the varying views of the appropriate (and inappropriate) role of the federal government were largely established during this time. Following World War II Williams continued working against racial discrimination in the South for the next 20 years. We strive for accuracy and fairness. 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. 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). Soon after the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt as president in March 1933, Harry Hopkins recruited Williams to be his assistant at the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The proud people who did everything they could to avoid direct relief sometimes were not eligible to be hired by the WPA. The WPA made significant contributions to the preservation of Black culture and history with the Federal Writers Project. To blame the WPA for a shortage of labor is to charge that the tail is wagging the dog. Some radical critics, including The New Republic's Jonathan Mitchell, saw more devious causes behind the low wages. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996. This included the compilation of the Index of American Design that documented American art, painting, sculpture, and folk art. Work relief was heralded as a solution. Ickes, Harold L. The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, Vols. But the WPA was also something more than a work relief program, and that was also part of the design. After the surprise attack by Japan on U.S. military installations at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Federal Writers' Project became part of the Writers' Unit of the War Services Division of the WPA. Against business owners grants repealed approximately six thousand Writers, librarians, archivists, and that was also something than. Copy and paste the text into your bibliography or Works cited list as Secretary of for... And plays, learned to paint, and that was also part of the 1930s: World. 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