Civil Works Administration

<h2 id="accomplishments">Accomplishments</h2>
<p>CWA workers laid 12 million feet of sewer pipe and built or improved 255,000 miles of roads, 40,000 schools, 3,700 <a href="/facts/Playground/7cmjTh0I">playgrounds</a>, and nearly 1,000 airports.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a> The program was praised by <a href="/facts/Alf_Landon/FpEHNmQC">Alf Landon</a>, who later ran against Roosevelt in the <a href="/facts/1936_United_States_presidential_election/bhK2kfLv">1936 election</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a>
</p><p>Representative of the work are one county's accomplishments in less than five months, from November 1933 to March 1934. <a href="/facts/Grand_Forks_County%2c_North_Dakota/y6rsFGeV">Grand Forks County, North Dakota</a> put 2,392 unemployed workers on its payroll at a cost of about $250,000. When the CWA began in eastern Connecticut, it could hire only 480 workers out of 1,500 who registered for jobs. Projects undertaken included work on city <a href="/facts/Public_utility/BzslJKc3">utility systems</a>, public buildings, parks, and roads. Rural areas profited, with most labor being directed to roads and community schools. CWA officials gave preference to veterans with dependents, but considerable political favoritism determined which North Dakotans got jobs.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a>

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<h2 id="opposition">Opposition</h2>
<p>Although the CWA provided much employment, there were critics who said there was nothing of permanent value. Roosevelt told his cabinet that this criticism moved him to end the program and replace it with the <a href="/facts/Works_Progress_Administration/BTnBat98">WPA</a> which would have long-term value for the society, in addition to short-term benefits for the unemployed.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a>
</p>
<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Works_Progress_Administration/BTnBat98">Works Progress Administration</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Civilian_Conservation_Corps/LUEsSoEn">Civilian Conservation Corps</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Public_Works_Administration/NnGuTpBw">Public Works Administration</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2>
<ul><li>Badger, Anthony J. "Doles and Jobs: Welfare." in <i>The New Deal</i> (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1989) pp. 190–244.[<i>ISBN missing</i>]</li>
<li>Bremer, William W. "Along the "American Way": The New Deal's Work Relief Programs for the Unemployed", <i>Journal of American History</i> Vol. 62, No. 3 (Dec., 1975), pp. 636–652 <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2936218">in JSTOR</a></li>
<li>Hopkins, June. <i>Harry Hopkins: Sudden hero, brash reformer</i> (Springer, 2016).[<i>ISBN missing</i>]</li>
<li>Lewis, Michael. "No Relief From Politics: Machine Bosses and Civil Works." <i>Urban Affairs Quarterly</i> 30.2 (1994): 210–226.</li>
<li>Lyon, Edwin A. <i>A new deal for southeastern archaeology</i> (University of Alabama Press, 1996).[<i>ISBN missing</i>]</li>
<li>Neumann, Todd C., Price V. Fishback, and Shawn Kantor. "The dynamics of relief spending and the private urban labor market during the New Deal." <i>Journal of Economic History</i> 70.1 (2010): 195–220. <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w13692/w13692.pdf">online</a></li>
<li>Peters, Charles and Timothy Noah. "Wrong Harry – Four million jobs in two years? FDR did it in two months" <i><a href="/facts/Slate_(magazine)/wtt6BaeF">Slate</a></i> Jan. 26, 2009 <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2209781">online</a></li>
<li>Schwartz, Bonnie Fox. <i>The Civil Works Administration, 1933–1934: The Business of Emergency Employment in the New Deal</i> (1984), a standard scholarly history[<i>ISBN missing</i>]</li>
<li>Smith, Jason Scott. <i>Building new deal liberalism: The political economy of public works, 1933–1956</i> (Cambridge University Press, 2006).[<i>ISBN missing</i>]</li>
<li>Walker, Forrest A. <i>The Civil Works Administration: an experiment in Federal work relief, 1933–1934</i> (1979), a standard scholarly history[<i>ISBN missing</i>]</li></ul>
<h3>Primary sources</h3>
<ul><li>McJimsey, George, ed. <i>FDR, Harry Hopkins, and the civil works administration</i> (LexisNexis, 2006) 679 pages; vol 30. of the <i>Documentary History of the Franklin D.  Roosevelt Administration</i></li>
<li>"<a href="http://bplonline.cdmhost.com/u?/p4017coll8,4698">Report on Civil Works Administration of Alabama, Jefferson County Division, Nov. 19, 1933 –  Mar. 31, 1934</a>" in the Birmingham Public Library's Digital Collections <i>[<i>dead link</i>]</i></li>
<li><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2209781/">Four million jobs in two years? FDR did it in two months.</a></li>
<li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110824093907/http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2009/1934/">1934: A New Deal for Artists" is an exhibition on the artists of the Great Depression at the Smithsonian American Art Museum</a></li>
<li><a href="http://content.lib.washington.edu/civilworksweb/index.html">University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Civil Works Administration Photographs</a> 119 images showing work projects in King County, Washington established under the auspices of the Civil Works Administration in 1933–34.</li></ul>
<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
<ul><li> Media related to Civil Works Administration at Wikimedia Commons</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Peters, Charles; Noah, Timothy (Jan 26, 2009), "Wrong Harry – Four million jobs in two years? FDR did it in two months", Slate <a href="/wiki/Charles_Peters" target="_blank">/wiki/Charles_Peters</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>Peters, Charles; Noah, Timothy (Jan 26, 2009), "Wrong Harry – Four million jobs in two years? FDR did it in two months", Slate <a href="/wiki/Charles_Peters" target="_blank">/wiki/Charles_Peters</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>Roger D. Hardaway, "The New Deal at the Local Level: The Civil Works Administration in Grand Forks County, North Dakota," North Dakota History, 1991, Vol. 58 Issue 2, pp 20–30 <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>Harold L. Ickes, Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes: The First Thousand Days 1933–1936 (1953) p. 256 [ISBN missing] <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources" target="_blank">/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

Civil Works Administration open-in-new

Civil Works Administration