Posted by
Frigglesnitz on Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:37:10 PM
As an afterword to the earlier blog on this subject, I was reminded of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) which, pursuant to some research (http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/wpa/wpa_info.html), "was a relief measure established in 1935 by executive order ... and was redesigned in 1939 when it was transferred to the Federal Works Agency....[S]upplied with an initial congressional appropriation of $4,880,000,000, it offered work to the unemployed on an unprecedented scale by spending money on a wide variety of programs, including highways and building construction, slum clearance, reforestation, and rural rehabilitation. So gigantic an undertaking was inevitably attended by confusion, waste, and political favoritism, yet the 'pump-priming' effect stimulated private business during the depression years and inaugurated reforms that states had been unable to subsidize....By March, 1938, the WPA rolls had reached a total of more than 3,400,000 persons; after initial cuts in June 1939, it averaged 2,300,000 monthly, and by June 30, 1943, when it was officially terminated, the WPA had employed more than 8,500,000 different persons on 1,410,000 individual projects, and had spent about $11 billion. During its 8-year history, the WPA built 651,087 miles of highways, roads, and streets; and constructed, repaired, or improved 124,031 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks, and 853 airport landing fields."
"(Sources: Encyclopedia of American History, 7th Ed., Jeffrey B. Morris and Richard B. Morris, eds., 1996. The Oxford Companion to American History, Thomas H. Johnson, 1966)"
From my own personal experience I am able to report that some of the WPA projects lasted and lasted and lasted until at least one of them was torn down, probably in 1995 or 1996 -- presumably in the name of progress. This particular project was a brick retaining wall parallel to and west of Soldier Field in Chicago. I noticed that wall many, many times from the windows of my train during my Chicago commute to work. Some of the bricks bore the carved initials "WPA" and a year.
While the wall was being reduced to rubble, I wondered at the time if any of those carved WPA bricks had been saved. What a memento that would have been! I also wondered if any of the workers engaged in the dismantling of the wall had any sense of its history. While glancing at those bricks on those commuter trips, I also believed it remarkable that the wall still stood after all those years. Yes, some grass had begun to grow between them, but taken as a whole, the bricks seemed impervious to the ravages of time and the bitter Chicago winters and blistering Chicago summers.
I believe those WPA workers worked as though their lives depended upon it. They probably did.