I'm sure I don't get it but how come there isn't a WPA for the 2010's?
Here's a snippet from the Wiki about the WPA:
The Works Progress Administration (renamed during 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest New Deal agency, employing millions to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. It fed children and redistributed food, clothing, and housing. Almost every community in the United States had a park, bridge or school constructed by the agency, which especially benefited rural and Western populations. Expenditures from 1936 to 1939 totaled nearly $7 billion.
Every time I go to a state park and see those great stone buildings erected by the CCC in the 30's I wonder why that kind of program doesn't happen now. This wonderful building is still the center of activities at Palmetto State Park. The stonework is wonderful. And parks all over Texas have 80 year old stone and concrete picnic tables built at the same time.
Rather than just depositing the $400 Unemployment stipend in someone's Chase Debit Account every week, why doesn't the gov'ment put people to work doing cool stuff like this? 80 years after it was started the work programs of the WPA are still benefiting us.
Check out the old time post office murals we have here in Texas. These were part of the WPA artist's project.
Rather than just deliver a check, local and national artists were asked to create lasting art for public spaces.
We recently went to Longhorn Caverns State Park where there is another great example of CCC construction. There was an interesting exhibit of CCC history.
Another part of the WPA was the Farm Security Administration. It's purpose was to "combat American rural poverty". One aspect was the recording of images of the era. Here are some cool shots which were originally color slides. I am in awe of the clarity and color in these shots. More here.
From the introduction:
These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.
Life was sure different then. Glad I got to see this little bit of it.
.
This from Caroline's 85+ year old step dad. I assume "Bubs" was HIS father:
ReplyDelete"She is certainly right about CCCs and WPA. Sometime in late 1933 Bubs joined the CCC’s and they sent him to Arizona to build logging roads on government owned land. He received $50.00 a month ($1500 dollars in Bush money) but Mom got $25.00 ($750.00 IBM) of that each month. My mothers home laundry had went broke and she had just started as a maid in her ultimate profession so her, my sister and I were living hand to mouth. I was standing in soup lines at school each day to get my bowl of beans and cup of milk so that $25.00 was mainly what we were living on. He was gone about a year. Bub’s seemed to enjoy the CCCs as he was always telling stories about it.
The WPA was also an excellent organization. They built the river walk in San Antonio. They also hired a bunch of Engineers and put them to work in Austin making standard designs for bridges and culverts so when it came time to build the Interstates we cold pull standard designs for many of our bridges and all of our culverts out of the files and not have to take time to design them.
My favorite program was Lyndon Johnson’s road side park program. The universities were close to shutting down in, I believe it was 1935, because of lack of students. No one could afford to go to college. Lyndon was just beginning his career and Roosevelt gave each state, I believe it was $250,000 ($7,500,000 IBM) in the spring and he told the politicians to put the young people who were college material to work so they would have money to go to college in the fall. He didn’t say what to do with the money. Each state was to decide for itself. Lyndon was given the Texas money and he came up with the idea of building road side parks because they didn’t require any elaborate plans before they could be built and that is where our road side parks came from and we were the only state to have them until the Interstates were built in the 1960s.
Johnson was just smart enough to include the black folks in the program although there was a lot of opposition to it but it would pay off for him later."
-shelly