Civil Works Administration
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The Civil Works Administration was established by the New Deal during the Great Depression to create jobs for millions of the unemployed. The jobs were to be merely temporary, for the duration of the hard winter. Harry L. Hopkins was put in charge of the organization. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the CWA on November 8, 1933. It was replaced due to the Federal Emergency Relief Act on April 1, 1934.
The CWA created construction jobs, mainly improving or constructing buildings and bridges. In just one year, the CWA cost the government over $1 Billion and was cancelled. So much was spent on this administration because it hired 4 million people and was mostly concerned with paying high wages.
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[edit] Opposition
The CWA recieved much opposition from its beginning. One of it's strongest opposers was Harold Ickes, who regarded the CWA as a gigantic boondoggle and the CWA workers as a bunch of leaf-workers and shovel-leaners. Many other people opposed the CWA, including Al Smith.
Among the masses, it was generally considered a huge and hasty organization of mercy that was abandoned, as well as a vast, unwieldy, expensive system of Federal work releif for the unemployed.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Kennedy, David M., Cohen, Lizabeth, Bailey, Thomas A. The American Pageant. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
- Lawson, Don. FDR's New Deal. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974.
- Nardo, Don. The Great Depression. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2000.
[edit] External links
- University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Civil Works Administration Photographs 119 images showing work projects in King County, Washington established under the auspices of the Civil Works Administration in 1933-34.
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