The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

murals, and utilizing their special skills in dozens of

other ways.

The cost of this program frightened Roosevelt—

Hopkins spent about $1 billion in less than five

months—and he soon abolished the CWA. But an

extensive public works program was continued

throughout 1934 under the FERA. Despite charges

that many of the projects were “boondoggles,” thou-

sands of roads, bridges, schools, and other structures

were built or refurbished.

In May 1935 Roosevelt put Hopkins in charge

of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). By

the time this agency was disbanded in 1943 it had

found employment for 8.5 million peo-

ple. Besides building public works, the

WPA made important cultural contribu-

tions. It developed the Federal Theatre

Project, which put actors, directors, and

stagehands to work; the Federal Writers’

Project, which turned out valuable guide-

books, collected local lore, and published

about 1,000 books and pamphlets; and

the Federal Art Project, which employed

painters and sculptors. In addition, the

National Youth Administration created

part-time jobs for more than 2 million

high school and college students.

At no time during the New Deal years

did unemployment fall below 10 percent of

the workforce, and in some places it was

much higher. Unemployment in Boston,

for instance, ranged between 20 and

30 percent throughout the 1930s. The

WPA did not go far enough, chiefly because

Roosevelt could not escape his fear of dras-

tically unbalancing the budget. Halfway

measures did not stimulate the economy.

The Unemployed 691

The Unemployed

At least 9 million persons were still without work in
1934 and hundreds of thousands of them were in real
need. Malcolm Little, later famous as the radical black
leader, Malcolm X, recalled 1934 as the worst year of
the Great Depression. Then nine, he never had
enough to eat. He and his friends would hang out
near a bakery, where they could buy a sack of day-old
bread and cookies for a nickel. But often, failing to
scrape together even a nickel, they went without food
all day. Then his mother pulled up some dandelions,
boiled them in a pot, and served them for dinner.
Yet the Democrats confounded the political
experts, including their own, by increasing their
already large majorities in both houses of Congress in
the 1934 elections. All the evidence indicates that
most of the jobless continued to support the adminis-
tration. Their loyalty can best be explained by
Roosevelt’s unemployment policies.
In May 1933 Congress had established the
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
and given it $500 million to be dispensed through
state relief organizations. Roosevelt appointed
Harry L. Hopkins, an eccentric but brilliant and
dedicated social worker, to direct the FERA.
Hopkins insisted that the unemployed needed jobs,
not handouts. In November he persuaded
Roosevelt to create the Civil Works Administration
(CWA) and swiftly put 4 million people to work
building and repairing roads and public buildings,
teaching, decorating the walls of post offices with

FERA CWA

Non-farm

workers

All

workers

WPA (to 1943)

1929

40

30

Percent of Workforce

20

10

0

1931 1933 1935 1937 1939 1941

Unemployment and Federal Action, 1929–1941Unemployment

of nonfarm workers reached nearly 40 percent by early 1933. The

Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) and Civil Works Administration

(CWA) (both in 1933) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)

(1935) put millions back to work.

Isaac Soyer’s Employment Agency(1937) captured the isolation and loss of self-esteem
that accompanied joblessness.
Source: Isaac Soyer (1907–1981), Employment Agency, 1937, Oil on canvas, 34^1 ⁄ 4 45 in. (87 114.3 cm.).
Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.