{"id":224421,"date":"2025-05-05T08:06:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T08:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-may-5-2025-the-works-progress-administration-eo-7034\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T08:06:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T08:06:24","slug":"americanstudies-may-5-2025-the-works-progress-administration-eo-7034","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=224421","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: May 5, 2025: The Works Progress Administration: EO 7034"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[On May 6th<\/sup>,
\n1935<\/a>, Franklin Roosevelt established the Works
\nProgress Administration<\/a> [WPA]. So this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a
\nhandful of WPA histories, leading up to a weekend post on why we need a 21st<\/sup>
\ncentury revival!]<\/p>\n

On three
\nsignificant elements of the
\nExecutive Order<\/a> that established WPA.<\/span><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Building on the Past: While EO 7034 did in
\nmany ways create a new government agency, it didn\u2019t quite do so officially;
\ninstead the WPA explicitly took the place of an existing agency, the Federal
\nEmergency Relief Administration<\/a> (FERA). Partly that shift was to make practical
\nquestions like leadership and funding for this new organization as smooth and
\nstraightforward as possible; the EO makes clear that \u201cthe Federal Emergency
\nRelief Administrator shall serve also as Administrator of the Works Progress
\nAdministration,\u201d for example. But I would argue that replacing FERA with WPA
\nwas also quite importantly symbolically, as it reflected the defining and
\nimportant idea that these works projects\u2014including, as we\u2019ll see later in the week,
\nartistic and cultural projects of all types\u2014were part of the government\u2019s
\nDepression relief efforts. <\/span><\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>A Focus on Relief: That organizational shift
\nwas far from the only way in which the EO overtly and centrally linked the WPA to
\nthe concept of relief. Section 3a of the EO notes that one of the WPA\u2019s \u201cpowers
\nand duties\u201d will be \u201cto assure that as many of the persons employed on all work
\nprojects as is feasible shall be persons receiving relief.\u201d For the prior two
\nyears, organizations like FERA and many other early New Deal programs had
\nfocused on precisely that mission, providing relief of many different kinds to
\nAmericans suffering from the Depression\u2019s catastrophic and widespread effects. The
\nWPA was one of many programs that became known as the \u201cSecond
\nNew Deal<\/a>,\u201d but details like the EO\u2019s section 3a illustrate that despite
\nthis evolution, the New Deal would continue to focus on the goal of relief,
\neven (if not especially) through these new projects.<\/span><\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Wages and Working Conditions: Like most Executive
\nOrders, 7034 didn\u2019t go into great detail about specifics, leaving those for the
\nfollow-up work of the WPA (on layers to which, again, the rest of the week\u2019s
\nposts will focus). Which makes one particular specific section very telling: the
\nfifth and final of the \u201cpowers and duties,\u201d which authorizes the WPA \u201cto
\ninvestigate wages and working conditions and to make and submit to the
\nPresident such findings as will aid the President in prescribing working
\nconditions and rates of pay on projects.\u201d That framing is ambiguous enough to allow
\nin the abstract for less than ideal working conditions and wages, of course;
\nbut when we remember the FDR was considered in his own era and has been perceived
\never since as one of the most
\npro-labor presidents<\/a> in American history, it\u2019s clear that this section was
\nmeant to give this federal program the ability to guarantee better working conditions
\nand wages than might otherwise have been possible. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next WPA
\npost tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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