The Infinite Dividend: The WPA · Episode 11 of 13 · 31 min
Leaning on Shovels: The War on the WPA
From the start critics called the WPA a boondoggle and its workers shovel-leaners. The program blunted the make-work charge with visible output and a rule against competing with business, and the vote-buying charge with the 1939 Hatch Act. It could not stop the culture war that led Congress to kill the Federal Theatre Project.
Who's who
- Harry Hopkins+10 more episodesWPA administrator and chief defender of work relief
- Josiah BaileyNorth Carolina senator and conservative critic of the WPA
- Carl HatchNew Mexico senator who sponsored the Hatch Act of 1939
- Martin Dies Jr.+1 more episodeTexas congressman who chaired the Special Committee on Un-American Activities
- Hallie Flanagan+1 more episodeFederal Theatre Project director summoned before the Dies Committee
Timeline
- 1935The boondoggle charge and shovel-leaner cartoons appear almost immediately
- 1938The House creates the Special Committee on Un-American Activities under Dies
- December 6, 1938Flanagan testifies before the Dies Committee
- 1939The Hatch Act bars relief workers from political campaigning
- June 30, 1939Congress terminates the Federal Theatre Project and pushes other arts units to the states
- 1939The agency is renamed the Work Projects Administration under the Federal Works Agency
Still debated
Critics and defenders still disagree on how much WPA work was useful versus padded, and on whether it was truly a vote-buying machine. Historians weigh the Dies Committee, appropriations politics and content choices differently in the theatre project's end.
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