The Roosevelt Administration created the PWA (Public Works Administration) in the spring of 1933, to promote economic recovery by funding local construction projects. The central concept was to put unemployed men to work, who would then spend their wages to buy goods and services. This was called “priming the pump.” Unlike so-called work relief projects, such as the WPA (Works Progress Administration), workers did not need to come from the welfare rolls. PWA projects also tended to be more “capital intensive” (using more machinery and less labor) and they required local funding in addition to federal grants. For all these reasons PWA projects were slow to start and often were rejected by local governments. In this article, for example, Northfield, Massachusetts rejects a federal grant for school construction.
Greenfield Daily Recorder-Gazette. “Deerfield and Bernardston Accept PWA; Northfield Rejects School Proposal.” October 22, 1935. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l08-035/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
Please note: Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.