ef programs -that is, programs to help the unemployed -werelaunched under a new agency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA attempted to make use of an individual's skill, whether it be sewing or translating books into braille. At its peak in November 1938, nearly 3.3 million people were on its payroll. When the WPA ended in 1941, it had provided work for a total of 8 million people.Among its 250,000 projects, the WPA had built or improved more than 2,500 Hospitals, 5,900 school buildings, 1,000 airports, and nearly 13,000 playgrounds. Some called these make-work programs a "Boondoggle" - a waste of money. But people were going back to work. And their salaries, besides giving them back the ability to buy things, also helped to stimulate the depressed economy.The WPA also gave employment to artist, musicians, actors, singers, and writers. After all, Roosevelt said, they have to eat too. Some of the WPA cultural projects included interviews with more than 2,000 surviving ex-slaves and the recording of folk tunes, American Indian songs, and black spirituals. On post office walls around the country, WPA artist painted murals. "Some of it good," observed Roosevelt, "some of it not so good, but all of it natural, human, eager, and alive" (Goodwin, 31)Hundreds of WPA teachers taught painting, pottery, weaving, and carving. Americans who had never seen a live play or concert, came to live theater performances. In four years, the Federal Theater Projects, a division of the WPA, produced over 2,700 plays, including the classics, children's plays, new American plays, and dance dramas. All in all, more than 30 million Americans saw at one time or another a WPA theater production.Another New Deal program for helping the unemployed was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Between 1933 and 1941 the CCC took some 2.7 million young men between the ages of 18 and 25 and hired them to work on erosion control, tree planting, forest-fi...
