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Works Progress Administration
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Works Progress Administration Record unemployment At work on the New Deal WPA champion school segregation Philip Guston Telling her story Art Deco style poster in red and yellow tones, featuring a stylized hand playing a stringed instrument and text reading Exhibition, Federal Art Project WPA, Index of American Design. Four Freedoms George H.W. Bush at Camp David
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Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration An adult education program of the Works Progress Administration, c. 1930s.

Works Progress Administration

United States history
Also known as: WPA, Work Projects Administration
Written by
Tracy Grant
Tracy Grant is a senior editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. She previously served as editor in chief, the first woman to hold that title. 
Tracy Grant
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
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•History

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a work program for the unemployed that was created in 1935 under U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The WPA was a centerpiece of the “Second New Deal,” whose programs, including Social Security, were implemented between 1935 and 1938 and intended to offer relief, recovery, and reform for millions of Americans still suffering from the ravages of the Great Depression. In essence, the WPA created millions of jobs...

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