Works Progress Administration - Definition and Overview

The Works Progress Administration (later Works Projects Administration, abbreviated WPA), was created on May 6, 1935 with the signing of Executive Order 7034. It was the largest and most comprehensive New Deal agency. It was a "make work" program that provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression. WPA projects primarily employed blue-collar workers in construction projects across the nation, but also employed white-collar workers and artists on smaller-scale projects. With unemployment figures falling fast due to World War II-related employment, Franklin D. Roosevelt shut down the WPA on December 4, 1943.

Famous WPA projects include Camp David, Golden Gate Bridge, Federal One and the Mathematical Tables Project.

External links

• eTexts (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Work+Projects+Administration) of oral history of former U.S. slaves collected in the 1930s by the WPA, at Project Gutenberg