Document 30-1: Field Office of the Works Progress Administration (ca. 1935)

The U.S. Government Responds to Mass Unemployment

The Great Depression sparked a profound shift in the role of the federal government in the U.S. economy. Convinced that the problems created by the depression were too large to be tackled by private organizations and local governments, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) persuaded Congress to intervene aggressively in the economy. Among Roosevelt’s many initiatives was the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Created in 1935, the WPA put millions of Americans to work repairing and improving the country’s infrastructure. As this photograph of a WPA field office suggests, the program had an impact on even the remotest corners of the country. As you examine the document, ask yourself what message the photographer hoped to convey to viewers. What did he or she want to say about the relationship between individual Americans and their government?

image
Private Collection/Peter Newark American Pictures/Bridgeman Images.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. How would you characterize the relationship between the two men in the photograph? What might their interaction have been meant to symbolize?
  2. What connections might the photographer have meant to make between traditional American values and the WPA?