In the darkest days of the Great Depression, the U.S. government stepped in to assist the needy and get the economy started again. Perhaps the widest-ranging and most productive New Deal measure was the Works Progress Administration. This group provided more than $10 billion in federal funds from 1935 through the early 1940s, employing millions of people in hundreds of thousands of jobs. Here are some of the most notable projects.
1. Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York
This minor league stadium -- which has hosted the annual major league Hall of Fame game every active baseball season since 1939 -- sits on the lot where Abner Doubleday supposedly invented baseball in 1839. A century later, the WPA refurbished the site's existing field, adding a grandstand, drainage system, wooden bleachers, and new fencing.
 © Matt Musselman Dealey Plaza in Texas was completed in 1940. |
2. Camp David, Maryland
In 1936, the WPA began work on a recreational area in western Maryland's Catoctin Mountains, completing Camp Hi-Catoctin by 1939. For three years, it was used as a family camp for federal employees until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited in April 1942 and selected it as the location for presidential retreats. In the early 1950s, President Eisenhower renamed the camp for his grandson. Camp David has hosted dozens of visiting foreign dignitaries for casual meetings with U.S. presidents, but it remains closed to the general public.
3. Dealey Plaza, Texas
In 1940, WPA workers completed this park in the heart of Dallas. Named for an early publisher of the Dallas Morning News, the plaza lives in infamy as the location of President John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963. There may be other "grassy knolls" in American parks, but none have gone down in history like the one in Dealey Plaza.
On the next page, you'll find more of the WPA projects that are still standing today.
