SOME of the WPA projects were boondoggles, not ALL. One reason was because its lapses and abuses were scrutinized far and wide. One thing that set it up for abuse was that many Democrats -- coat-tailed into office with FDR -- saw their chance to use it for patronage in awarding jobs and contracts to pals, if not outright skimming. Any Republican who was paying attention was quick to point the accusing finger! Much the same for blacks or other ethnicities -- every faction wanted in and demanded to be accommodated. IIRC the General Accounting Office spent a lot of effort to police the WPA, as well as other FDR "socialist" programs. It was the WPA BTW that built many, many post offices, National Guard armories, US Route roads and Federal office buildings. Without WPA, they would not have existed. WPA also employed artists -- check out the murals and statuary of post offices and other period edifices -- including musicians, actors and writers. The writers published tourist guide books on all the States that were, and still are, very good and recognized as "yardsticks" of the genre. In similar fashion, the CCC "invented" or made usable our entire system of National Parks and National Forests. Without CCC, there would have been no trail networks, access roads, hiker huts, surveys, maps, man-made lakes and reservoirs and on and on. It, called "The Tree Army", also was the incubator for our mobilized military in WWII. John Andrews -----Original Message----- From: worldwar2-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:diamond6468@mindspring.com] Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:59 AM To: worldwar2@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [WORLDWAR2] WORLDWAR2 Digest, Vol 1, Issue 10 The CCC was also part of the WPA. ----- Original Message ----- From: <JbarL@aol.com> To: <worldwar2@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 11:36 PM Subject: Re: [WORLDWAR2] WORLDWAR2 Digest, Vol 1, Issue 10 | | In a message dated 8/30/2006 5:49:40 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, | ewh@adelphia.net writes: | | Malisa, I just received a private e-mail from a rootsweb friend reminding me | the WPA. It was Work Progress Administration and was the brain child of | Franklin D. Roosevelt in the late 1930's along with WPA which, if I remember | correctly, was Public Work Administration. Both were the beginning of the | make work program financed by the Government. Unemployed men were put to | work repairing roads, bridges, parks etc. and building retaining walls etc. | for public benefit. They were boondoggle projects. My father had a new | 1936 International Dump Truck and was hired to transport the men to the job | sites. The joke at the time was that most of the workers stood around | leaning on their shovels. | Ellis Hosbach | Bethel Park, PA | | | ------------------------------- | To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to | WORLDWAR2-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and | the body of the message | | | | Ellis: | | The PWA (Public Works Administration) was responsible for building federal | buildings all across the United States. If you have a 1930s era post office | in your town it probably was built under the Public Works Administration. | Now the WPA is another matter entirely...have you ever heard the wonderful | song ( by the Mills Brothers I think) called the WPA? | Many of the projects were boondoggles as you say but if you can find the WPA | writer's projects which include wonderful local histories you will feel | differently. At 92 I have had a first hand experience with the WPA. I worked | for the State of California in the Bureau of Vital Statistics...We had a WPA | project there during the war which made photostatic copies of all the original | Birth , marriage and death certificates. Those copies were coded with the | soundex system by the WPA crew and were filed by the soundex coding....I was | responsible for searching for birth certificates for the men and women eager to | serve their country ....as I recall the birth certificates were required for | enlistment in some parts of the service other than the army. On December 8th | ,1941 we had a triple line of men over two blocks long waiting for our doors | to open. We worked a lot of overtime finding the correct records and blessed | those WPA workers for the work that they had done as we could search in file | drawers for photo copies instead of hauling heavy books of original records | | Forgive an old lady for this bout of recall...You pushed a buried memory | button. | | Jessie | | ------------------------------- | To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to WORLDWAR2-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to WORLDWAR2-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message