Did your ancestor work for the WPA (Works Progress Administration) during the great depression? Mine certainly did. My own father, Theodore Canfield Meitzler, worked for the WPA in Oregon for at least a short period. I remember hearing him talk about it as a child. With Congress and President-elect Obama seriously considering a massive economic stimulus package which is meant to employ Americans, looking back at the WPA era seems reasonable. Iric Nathanson has an article at MinnPost.com dealing with the WPA era in Minnesota. It’s a good read.
Following is a short excerpt:
The image has become part of American political iconography. It shows a man in a slouch hat leaning against his shovel. He is earning a few dollars a day during the 1930s working for the Roosevelt administration’s WPA — the Works Progress Administration.
To its conservative critics, the WPA was just another big government boondoggle. But to its supporters, this federal jobs initiative brought a modest weekly income and self-respect to millions of out-of-work Americans who were the chief victims of the Great Depression.
A centerpiece of the Roosevelt administration’s “second New Deal,’ the WPA was enacted in April 1935 as a replacement for direct federal relief — known as “the dole” — that was considered demeaning and demoralizing for its recipients.
Read the full article, “The WPA in Minnesota: economic stimulus during the Great Depression,” by Iric Nathanson, in the January 7, 2009 edition of MinnPost.com.