Civil Works Administration

The Civil Works Administration was established by the New Deal during the Great Depression to rapidly create manual labor jobs for millions of unemployed workers. The jobs were merely temporary, for the duration of the hard winter. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the CWA on November 8, 1933 and put Harry L. Hopkins in charge of the short-term agency. Roosevelt was convinced that jobs were much better for everyone than cash handouts.

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.

Read more about Civil Works Administration:  Accomplishments, Opposition

Famous quotes containing the words civil and/or works:

    When civil fury first grew high,
    And men fell out, they knew not why;
    When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
    Set folks together by the ears,
    And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
    For Dame Religion, as for punk;
    Samuel Butler (1612–1680)

    All his works might well enough be embraced under the title of one of them, a good specimen brick, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.” Of this department he is the Chief Professor in the World’s University, and even leaves Plutarch behind.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)