"As we know from watching Congress debate the recovery plan, lawmakers have a great ability to let slide through," says Nick Taylor, the author of "American Made," a history of the WPA. In response, private corporations and city governments have already prepared more than 30,000 "shovel-ready" projects that need federal funding. Last week, he approved an economic recovery bill by House Democrats that would spend two years putting more than 4 million Americans to work. FDR made this goal his priority, and a newly inaugurated Obama is already homing in on a new New Deal, one that keeps unemployment below double digits by focusing on refurbishing the United States. But they kept America from sinking deeper into the Depression, if only because they paid the same wages as the other, perhaps more significant jobs. These aren't the kinds of projects discussed with admiration and nostalgia when history teachers assign the New Deal. The best example from the FDR years? Government-funded research on the production and efficiency of safety pins. "Rhythmic dancing"-whatever that means-was also sponsored, as was craft-making, or what the Boy Scouts might have called "boondoggling." In fact, the term "boondoggle," meaning any job or activity that is wasteful or trivial, was inspired by just these sorts of WPA projects. Indian tribes were paid to create new totem poles and other artifacts. And in Boston, the government sponsored a project to make fish chowder. In Brooklyn, men and women worked as fire hydrant decorators.
![fdr well i poke to hiri fdr well i poke to hiri](https://assets.dnainfo.com/photo/2016/8/1470882202-269138/extralarge.jpg)
In our nation's capital, more than 100 men were paid to scare off pigeons. But not all the jobs were on a grand scale sometimes, local priorities took hold. That meant constructing the parks, schools and roads that still dot our national landscape.
![fdr well i poke to hiri fdr well i poke to hiri](https://develop.bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/origin-213.jpg)
Kennedy), for example, and Minneapolis's Walker Arts Center.ĭespite these lasting projects, the real goal of the WPA was to keep people employed. From 1935 to 1943, Uncle Sam wrote checks to more than 8 million men and women who were building bridges to somewhere, laying down golf courses and creating images of America that remain indelible: New York's Triborough Bridge (recently renamed for Robert F.
![fdr well i poke to hiri fdr well i poke to hiri](https://assets.dnainfo.com/photo/2016/7/1468438002-265408/extralarge.jpg)
Back then, with unemployment nearing a record 24 percent, Franklin Roosevelt announced plans to get Americans back to work, creating the now-iconic Works Progress Administration (as well as its predecessors, the Civil Works Administration and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration). While comparisons to past decades and former presidents have been a bit overplayed of late, especially around the inauguration, bear with us a moment while we mention the dark days of the 1930s again.