American-made : the enduring legacy of the WPA : when FDR put the nation to work / Nick Taylor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Taylor, Nick, 1945-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Works Progress Administration.

United States.

Job creation--United States--History--20th century.

Job creation.

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 630 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Bantam Book, 2008.

Summary:

When President Roosevelt took the oath of office in 1933, he was facing a devastated nation. Four years into the Great Depression, 13 million American workers were jobless. What people wanted were jobs, not handouts, and in 1935, after a variety of temporary relief measures, a permanent nationwide jobs program was created--the Works Progress Administration, which would forever change the physical landscape and the social policies of the United States. The WPA lasted for eight years, spent $11 billion, and employed 8 and a half million men and women. The agency combined the urgency of putting people back to work with a vision of physically rebuilding America. Its workers laid roads, erected dams, bridges, tunnels, and airports, but also performed concerts, staged plays, and painted murals. Sixty years later, there is almost no area in America that does not bear some visible mark of its presence.--From publisher description.

Contents:

In extremis

Hope on the rise

The dawn of the WPA

Folly and triumph

The arts programs

The phantom of recovery

The WPA under attack

WPA: War Preparation Agency

The legacy of the WPA

Glossary.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [551]-555) and index.

ISBN:

9780553802351

0553802356

OCLC:

170057676