Talk:Works Progress Administration

delano?

umm.... delanor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.219.88 (talk) 06:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

-it is actually Delano :P I looked it up in "A People and a Nation" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.113.247.68 (talk) 05:00, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Objection

I object to the statement that the WPA was "manipulated" by left-wingers. This sounds like a Fox News cheap shot. While HUAC held hearings into communist influence in the WPA, it never found any -- the hearings were a "show trial" designed to build the political carers of a few Congresional blow-hards.

Help?

I am doing research over both the WPA in Oklahoma and also African Americans in the WPA. Does anyone have any ideas for good sources for these lines of research? If you have any ideas, please email me: kerensilva2588@hotmail.com Thanks,Dan. yes- email bounced back.DownUndr 17:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)downundr

TVA ?

Someone might want to investigate the statement that the WPA was responsible for the TVA. I am almost certain that the Public Works Administration (the PWA, which was *not* the WPA) was the agency involved in building projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover Dam, etc. Wahkeenah 13:03, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Broken Houston City Hall Link

I would fix the broken link so that it would link to a picture of it available at the Houston article, but it has bad copyright status. Any ideas? Mihirgk 20:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

??

Wasn't the WPA set up by Congress in response to a request by Roosevelt... It's what my textbook says (A History of the United States, Boorstin and Kelley). This book has not made an error like this before, so would someone please tell me which is right??

See Howard pp 106-7. Congress passed funding bills every year for the WPA, but did not lay out the structure or mission of the agency; FDR did that. Rjensen 12:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Great Depression Project help

I am doing a project on the WPA for school. For this project i will need to know these things:

    1.What was the work being done by the agency?
    2.How was the work being portrayed?
    3.How did the agency benefit the public
         and for the poster?
    4.How does the poster present the New Deal's broader 
        idea of active government as a solution to the problems created by the great depression?
        If you think you can help me with any of these questions, please email me at heedeeho@yahoo.com
        Thank you and please do not forget that this is for a Great Depression project.
                                                                          Sincerely, 
                                                                            Hayden Davis

PWA

I know that the PWA was declared unconstitutional in 1935 but i don't know when, was this set up as a similar Administration (they seem very similar!) with a different name to bypass Supreme Court ruling? Murdochious 09:21, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Outdoor Ampitheaters

Hi, I'm trying to help a friend with a college project and I was wondering if anyone had a list of outdoor ampitheaters built by the WPA program. If so can someone either post it or send me a link on my talk page. Thanks for the help! --Lekogm 22:41, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

WPA Bird Houses

We have seen many bird houses located throughout the back roads of Kansas. It was our understanding that they were a W24.255.173.68 23:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)PA project but we cannot find any info. Does anyone know anything about a bird house WPA project? We were told that they were primarily to help maintain the blue bird population. Any help will be appreciated. janelle@cla-mar.com (please specify WPA on subject line. Thanks

the WPA and the Arts

It would be very worthwhile for someone to write an article on the WPA's role with regard to the arts. The subject is barely touched on here, and yet culturally very important to the US. and werent there a bunch of really great paintings/posters for it? they looked like dreamy utopian propaganda for american progress. i'd like to see a few here 76.202.249.19 (talk) 15:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Stone carving by WPA Workers

I am seeking information about the rectangular stone plaques that were used in stone walls built by the WPA on the road up to the summit of Bear Mountain, New York, overlooking the Hudson River. In the stone wall there remain four such plaques, each one being about 14 inches by 20 inches and containing the following deeply carved words and figures: W P A 1935. The date appears directly below the acronym. I'd appreciate any information about how these plaques came to be carved and where they were carved and by whom (i.e. WPA sculptor or stone mason,etc.). Thanks.--~

Date WPA was created

President Roosevelt's executive order establishing the WPA was issued on May 6, 1935 — not in April of 1935 as stated in this article. On April 8, 1935 the President signed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, a joint resolution that Congress passed to provide provide funding for relief purposes and which gave the President authority to establish the WPA.Joachim57 (talk) 20:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I have just undone what appears to have been an act of vandalism by "Grandma Minnie". John Sauter (talk) 05:30, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

The definition of WPA

Back in the mid 1990s, while my wife and I were traveling through West Texas, we came across a plaque displayed on rock fence around a school yard. The plaque claimed that the rock fence and school had been built as a "World Progress Administration" project. Both my wife and I saw the plaque and we took pictures, which we cannot find. After many Google searches, I have come up with a number of definitions for WPA: Works Progress Administration, Works Projects Administration, and a very few references to World Progress Administration. Does anyone know a history for the name "World Progress Administration"? 216.244.61.187 (talk) 02:44, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Administration and scope

To whom did the enabling legislation give the authority to decide which projects got funding? Who was eligible for a job? How were workers moved back into the private sector? Why were workers capped at 30 hours per week? -- Beland (talk) 20:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Worker Profile ==> Women in the WPA

Is it me, or does the worker profile section not actually contain much general information on the profile of workers in the WPA, but specifically information on the kinds of women in the WPA. Any objections to changing the title of that section?

Rflrob (talk) 20:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC) rflrob 2009-11-29

Questions on WPA Adminsitration

Were WPA projects managed by public employees or by private contractors? When a road or building was constructed who ordered supplies and set work schedules (i.e. decided what day to build forms, to set steel, and to pour concrete). Who designed the projects? No doubt there were qualified people around who were unemployed but could they be found and organized into design or management teams? Just because you need a job doesn't mean you have the skills to design a roof truss, calculate the gravel and asphalt needed for a mile long road, or can figure out how many workers are needed to build a hundred feet of concrete wall.

A few years later, during WWII, the military model was to designate a project administration team, then hire contractors to do the actual construction: airfield, barracks, etc. That would probably be a good model if there were a WPA in today's economy. There are many unemployed construction people and most companies have unused or mothballed capacity. All they'd have to do would be hire back their laid off workers and crank up the idle bulldozers. Tldoran (talk) 21:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

NPOV

Read the "Criticism" section. Apparently there's not a single criticism of the WPA where it's defenders don't have the last word. The criticism section is filled to the brim with straw men who are knocked down with ease. Surely the WPA was not a perfect program? Surely it's detractors had some valid points? Surely giving a job to everyone who needs one will prevent, to a certain extent, the private market from hiring? If wiki is to be truly NPOV it's on articles like this that it needs to start. --CptBuck (talk) 19:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

nobody would make money by hiring the bottom rung as long as there was a next-to-the-bottom rung full of unemployed people. They were trapped. We see something like this emerging in 2011--long term unemployed who send out thousands of resumes and can't get hired. Rjensen (talk) 20:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

then how did they get hired in the end? Or did I miss that the WPA is still around somewhere? Again, if the WPA wasn't perfect, it follows that some criticism of it should be valid. Good luck finding that in this article, instead all you find are straw men. ----CptBuck (talk) 08:16, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

WW2 changed everything. retraining programs began. Government cost-plus contract made it profitable to hire every possible person. The better skilled younger men were off to military. hence industry finally hired the hard core unemployed. Rjensen (talk) 14:05, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

And no one has ever objected to that narrative with sufficient objectivity to get any recognition on this page? If John Steinbeck can be used as a succesful retort to the "shovel leaners" can I use Louis Armstrong who sang, in 1940, ""Sleep while you work, rest while you play, lean on your shovel to pass the time away, at the WPA." Have you read the criticism section Rjensen? It's pretty objectively non-objective. A criticism section should have some, you know, criticism. --CptBuck (talk) 06:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

why is CptBuck so hostile to the WPA--perhaps he is unaware that Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman admired it (it funded the Reagan and Friedman families in hard times). the "criticism" section includes the main criticisms levied, especially its political role. Rjensen (talk) 07:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Am I hostile to the WPA? You have no idea. I'm hostile to the criticism section, which contains no actual criticism. And I am being debated by someone who believes that no such criticism is valid. If that's the case Rjensen, why don't you do what I was considering and just delete the criticism section, since you believe no such criticism is valid, and I believe the section is absurd. --CptBuck (talk) 09:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)