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Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal. The WPA's first appropriation in 1935 was $4.9 billion (about $15 per person in the U.S., around 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP). Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA supplied paid jobs to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while building up the public infrastructure of the US, such as parks, schools, and roads. Most of the jobs were in construction, building more than of streets and over 10,000 bridges, in addition to many airports and much housing. In 1942, the WPA played a key role in both building and staffing Internment of Japanes ...
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Federal Emergency Relief Administration
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was a program established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, building on the Hoover administration's Emergency Relief and Construction Act. It was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). During the Hoover Administration, the federal government gave loans to the states to operate relief programs. One of these, the New York state program TERA (Temporary Emergency Relief Administration), was set up in 1931 and headed by Harry Hopkins, a close adviser to then-Governor Roosevelt. A few years later, as president, Roosevelt asked Congress to set up FERA—which gave grants to the states for the same purpose—in May 1933, and appointed Hopkins to head it. Along with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), it was the first relief operation under the New Deal. FERA's main goal was to alleviate household unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state government. Jobs were more expensive ...
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Federal Project Number One
Federal Project Number One, also referred to as Federal One (Fed One), is the collective name for a group of projects under the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program in the United States. Of the United States Dollar, $4.88 billion allocated by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, $27 million was approved for the employment of artists, musicians, actors and writers under the WPA's Federal Project Number One. In its prime, Federal Project Number One employed up to 40,000 writers, musicians, artists and actors because, as Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins put it, "Hell, they’ve got to eat, too". This project had two main principles: 1) that in time of need the artist, no less than the manual worker, is entitled to employment as an artist at the public expense and 2) that the arts, no less than business, agriculture, and labor, are and should be the immediate concern of the ideal commonwealth. The five divisions of Federal One were these: * Federal Art Proj ...
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Executive Order
In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the United States Constitution gives presidents broad executive and enforcement authority to use their discretion to determine how to enforce the law or to otherwise manage the resources and staff of the federal government's executive branch. The delegation of discretionary power to make such orders is required to be supported by either an expressed or implied congressional law, or the constitution itself.John Contrubis, '' Executive Orders and Proclamations'', CRS Report for Congress #95-722A, March 9, 1999, Pp. 1-2 The vast majority of executive orders are proposed by federal agencies before being issued by the president. Like both legislative statutes and the regulations promulgated by government agencies, executive orders are subjec ...
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Fireside Chats
The fireside chats were a series of evening radio addresses given by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, between 1933 and 1944. Roosevelt spoke with familiarity to millions of Americans about recovery from the Great Depression, the promulgation of the Emergency Banking Act in response to the banking crisis, the Recession of 1937–38, 1936 recession, New Deal initiatives, and the Military history of the United States during World War II, course of World War II. On radio, he quelled rumors, countered conservative-dominated newspapers, and explained his policies directly to the American people. His tone and demeanor communicated self-assurance during times of despair and uncertainty. Roosevelt was regarded as an effective communicator on radio, and the fireside chats kept him in high public regard throughout his presidency. Their introduction was later described as a "revolutionary experiment with a nascent media platform." The series of chats were amon ...
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Social Security Act
The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the 74th United States Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. The law created the Social Security (United States), Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment in the United States, unemployment. The law was part of Roosevelt's New Deal domestic program. By 1930, the United States was one of the few industrialized countries without any national social security system. Amid the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression, the physician Francis Townsend galvanized support behind a proposal to issue direct payments to older people. Responding to that movement, Roosevelt organized a committee led by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to develop a major social welfare program proposal. Roosevelt presented the plan in early 1935 and signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. The Supreme Court of the United States, Supreme Court upheld ...
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Reconstruction Finance Corporation
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) was an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the United States federal government that served as a lender of last resort to US banks and businesses. Established in 1932 by the Presidency of Herbert Hoover, Hoover administration to restore public confidence in the economy and banking to their pre-Great Depression in the United States, Depression levels, the RFC provided financial support to state and local governments, Recapitalization, recapitalized banks to prevent bank failures and stimulate lending, and made loans to railroads, mortgage associations, and other large businesses. The Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, first and second terms, Roosevelt administration's New Deal reforms expanded the agency, enabling it to direct disaster relief funds and provide loans for agriculture, exports, and housing. The RFC closed in 1957 when prosperity had been restored and for-profit private financial in ...
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Local Government In The United States
Most U.S. states and territories have at least two tiers of local government: County (United States), counties and municipality, municipalities. Louisiana uses the term List of parishes in Louisiana, parish and Alaska uses the term List of boroughs and census areas in Alaska, borough for what the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau terms county equivalents in those states. Civil townships or towns are used as subdivisions of a county in 20 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest. Depending on the state, local governments may operate under their own charters or under general law, or a state may have a mix of chartered and general-law local governments. Generally, in a state having both chartered and general-law local governments, the chartered local governments have more local autonomy and home rule. Municipalities are typically subordinate to a county government, with some exceptions. Certain cities, for example, have consolidated with their county government as ...
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State Governments Of The United States
In the United States, state governments are institutional units exercising functions of government at a level below that of the federal government. Each U.S. state's government holds legislative, executive, and judicial authority over a defined geographic territory. The United States comprises 50 states: 9 of the Thirteen Colonies that were already part of the United States at the time the Constitution took effect in 1789, 4 that ratified the Constitution after its commencement, plus 37 that have been admitted since by Congress as authorized under Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution. Legal status While each of the state governments within the United States holds legal and administrative jurisdiction within its bounds, they are not sovereign in the Westphalian sense in international law which says that each state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another state' ...
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Federal Government Of The United States
The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: United States Congress, legislative, President of the United States, executive, and Federal judiciary of the United States, judicial. Powers of these three branches are defined and vested by the Constitution of the United States, U.S. Constitution, which has been in continuous effect since May 4, 1789. The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by Act of Congress, Acts of Congress, including the creation of United States federal executive departments, executive departments and courts subordinate to the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court. In the Federalism in the United States, federal division of power, the federal government shares sovereignty with each of the 50 states in their respective t ...
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Federal Art Project
The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the largest of the New Deal art projects. It was created not as a cultural activity, but as a relief measure to employ artists and artisans to create murals, easel paintings, sculpture, graphic art, posters, photography, Federal Theatre Project, theatre scenic design, and arts and crafts. The WPA Federal Art Project established more than 100 community art centers throughout the country, researched and documented American design, commissioned a significant body of public art without restriction to content or subject matter, and sustained some 10,000 artists and craft workers during the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression. According to ''American Heritage'', “Something like 400,000 easel paintings, murals, p ...
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Federal Music Project
The Federal Music Project (FMP) was a part of the New Deal program Federal Project Number One provided by the U.S. federal government which employed musicians, conductors and composers during the Great Depression. In addition to performing thousands of concerts, offering music classes, organizing the Composers Forum Laboratory, hosting music festivals and creating 34 new orchestras, employees of the FMP researched American traditional music and folk songs, a practice now called ethnomusicology. In the latter domain the Federal Music Project did notable studies on cowboy, Creole, and what was then termed Negro music. During the Great Depression, many people visited these symphonies to forget about the economic hardship of the time. In 1939, the FMP transitioned to the Works Progress Administration's Music Program, which along with many other WPA projects, was phased out in the midst of World War II.Peter Gough and Peggy Seeger, ''Sounds of the New Deal: The Federal Music Project in ...
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