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:
“Come, come, my boy, say “Good morning” to your creator. Speak! You’ve got a civil tongue in your head, I know you have because I sewed it back myself.”
—Kenneth Langtry, and Herbert L. Strock. Prof. Frankenstein (Whit Bissell)
“The works of women are symbolical.
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight,
Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir,
To put on when you’re weary or a stool
To stumble over and vex you ... “curse that stool!”
Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean
And sleep, and dream of something we are not,
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas!
This hurts most, this ... that, after all, we are paid
The worth of our work, perhaps.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)