photos
1. This picture was taken of WPA workers starting to construct streets by digging up dirt and relocating it. The foreground and background is filled with workers because there were indeed thousands of people employed by WPA programs. These workers are known as Relief Workers because they are helping with the restoration of the economy and the reintroduction of their old stabler lives. Here they are particularly excavating Bayview hill to become Bayshore Avenue.
2. This is part of the Greg Gaar Collection, San Francisco, who was most likely, a WPA worker himself assigned to photograph the time period to document it. The WPA was made to put Americans to work improving their communities' infrastructure. The program was relatively simple, one had to be 18 years old to work for the WPA and only one member of each family would be granted a job- this kept job distribution more fair by allowing each family a greater chance of having a breadwinner.
3. This image really conveys the extensive amount of people the WPA got working. You don't necessarily need that many workers to do these jobs, especially now that more new technologies were available, but it was crucial to get America back to work. People had been living on the streets with next to nothing, or less, and now all of a sudden with Roosevelt creating these new job opportunities, the workers surged in. Even under the New Deal, workers far outweighed the number of jobs, but these programs were one of the most important first steps. This picture shows many workers concentrated. In a way, although every individual and their family had been scraping along, every family had been in the same condition. Now with the immense hope that the WPA brought, it also maintained the sense of every family being in the same situation. Now common people could celebrate together and realize that they were not alone.
2. This is part of the Greg Gaar Collection, San Francisco, who was most likely, a WPA worker himself assigned to photograph the time period to document it. The WPA was made to put Americans to work improving their communities' infrastructure. The program was relatively simple, one had to be 18 years old to work for the WPA and only one member of each family would be granted a job- this kept job distribution more fair by allowing each family a greater chance of having a breadwinner.
3. This image really conveys the extensive amount of people the WPA got working. You don't necessarily need that many workers to do these jobs, especially now that more new technologies were available, but it was crucial to get America back to work. People had been living on the streets with next to nothing, or less, and now all of a sudden with Roosevelt creating these new job opportunities, the workers surged in. Even under the New Deal, workers far outweighed the number of jobs, but these programs were one of the most important first steps. This picture shows many workers concentrated. In a way, although every individual and their family had been scraping along, every family had been in the same condition. Now with the immense hope that the WPA brought, it also maintained the sense of every family being in the same situation. Now common people could celebrate together and realize that they were not alone.
Source: Keegan, Timothy. "W.P.A. Construction in San Francisco (1935-1942)." - FoundSF. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2012. <http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=W.P.A._Construction_in_San_Francisco_(1935-1942)>.