CWA


 * CWA**
 * Christian Basham /**

The Civil Works Administration was established in the fall of //**1933**// and disbanded the following spring, was the first, public employment experiment of the New Deal. During the Great Depression it created manual labor jobs for millions of unemployed. The jobs were merely temporary, for the duration of the hard winter. Harry L. Hopkins was put in charge of the organization. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the CWA on //**November 8, 1933.**//

The CWA was a project created under the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). The CWA created construction jobs, mainly improving or constructing buildings and bridges. It ended on //**March 31, 1934,**// after spending $200 million a month and giving jobs to 4 million people. The CWA's workers laid 12 million feet of sewer pipe and built or improved 255,000 miles of roads, 40,000 schools, 3,700 playgrounds, and nearly 1,000 airports (not to mention 250,000 outhouses still badly needed in rural America). The program was praised by Alf Landon, who later ran against //**Roosevelt in the 1936 election.**//

Representative of the work are one county's accomplishments in less than five months, from **//N ovember 1933 to March 1934.//** Grand Forks County, North Dakota put 2,392 unemployed workers on its payroll at a cost of about $250,000. When the CWA began in eastern North Dakota, it could hire only 480 workers out of 1,500 who registered for jobs. Projects undertaken included work on city utility systems, public buildings, parks, and roads. Rural areas profited, with most labor being directed to roads and community schools. CWA officials gave preference to veterans with dependents, but considerable political favoritism determined which North Dakotans got jobs.

Although the CWA provided much employment there were many taxpayers who saw leaves being raked but nothing of permanent value. Roosevelt told his cabinet that this criticism moved him to end the program and replace it with the WPA which would have long-term value for the society, in addition to short-term benefits for the unemployed.

The New Deal was a liberal, evolutionary reform program that did not represent a revolutionary break from the past. Though radical, The New Deal did not shake the very core of American existence, as would be required of a revolution. It was a Governmental ﻿supplement to the well being of its citizens, which was slowly deteriorating. American ideology dating back to pre-Revolutionary War days rings true through The New Deal, e.g. justice for the "common man." Walter Lippman was spot on in calling Franklin Delano Roosevelt a "kind of amiable Boy Scout," especially in the framework of the Civil Workers Administration.

The New Deal Ice Palace
 Saranac Lake, New York has an annual winter carnival in which an ice palace is built. This tradition dates back to the 19th century, when it was initiated to raise the spirits of tuberculosis patients who came to the town for recuperation over the long winter.

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