Closing sentence from author Nick Taylor: The "New Deal's fundamental wisdom of treating people as a resource and not as a commodity ... fulfill[ed] the founding vision of a government by and for its people. All its people.”
Asked who would pay for all this, Hopkins spoke passionately of the moral necessity of big government. "You are. ... This is America, the richest country in the world. We can afford to pay for anything we want. And we want a decent life for all the people in this country."
What did the WPA do? Paraphrasing the author here - WPA was so successful and ubiquitous and had such impact that its physical legacy is so familiar as to be unnoticed. Millions of us grow up riding on WPA built roads and crossing WPA built bridges, reading books in WPOA libraries attending WPA built schools adorned with WPA murals, swam in lakes made by WPA dams in parks constructed by WPA.
Hot lunches in public schools, vaccinations, outhouses in rural unplumbed areas, university stadiums, lodges in grand national parks, mobile libraries, Americanization classes for immigrants.
And some great murals, frescoes, mosaics, paintings, novels, theater productions - and travel guides and posters.
Phillip Guston’s mural at the 1939 World’s Fair. Screenshot of photo by WPA Art Project. Phillip Guston went on to become a painter’s painter in the Abstract Expressionist era and made NYC the pinnacle of post War art