The Work Projects Administration (originally the Works Progress Administration) was established in 1935 with Harry Hopkins at its head. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration the WPA directed all relief projects except the CCC and the PWA. Its function was to provide jobs to unemployed workers on public projects sponsored by federal, state, or local agencies; and on defense and war-related projects. By 1943, its termination date, the WPA had spent eleven billion dollars, given work to eight million people, and completed 250,000 public-works projects.
President Roosevelt believed that artists, actors, musicians and writers were entitled to government aid during the depression, as well as farmers and other workers.
The researcher should note that the WPA microfilm is very poor and in most places barely legible. Last entry on roll 44 is a project registry alphabetical by county.
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