Skip content
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch
American-Made by Nick Taylor
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of local bookstores with the promo code SWITCH, you’ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

American-Made

The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work

$26.24

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator James Boles
Length 20 hours 13 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

When President Roosevelt took the oath of office in March 1933, he was facing a devastated nation. Four years into the Great Depression, a staggering 13 million American workers were jobless and many millions more of their family members were equally in need. Desperation ruled the land.



What people wanted were jobs, not handouts—the pride of earning a paycheck. And in 1935, after a variety of temporary relief measures, a permanent nationwide jobs program was created. This was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and it would forever change the physical landscape and the social policies of the United States.



The WPA lasted for eight years, spent $11 billion, employed 8.5 million men and women, and gave the country not only a renewed spirit but a fresh face. Under its colorful head, Harry Hopkins, the agency's remarkable accomplishment was to combine the urgency of putting people back to work with its vision of physically rebuilding America. Its workers laid roads and erected dams, bridges, tunnels, and airports. They stocked rivers, made toys, sewed clothes, and served millions of hot school lunches. When disasters struck, they were there by the thousands to rescue the stranded. And all across the country the WPA's arts programs performed concerts, staged plays, painted murals, delighted children with circuses, and created invaluable guidebooks. Even today, more than sixty years after the WPA ceased to exist, there is almost no area in America that does not bear some visible mark of its presence.



Politically controversial, the WPA was staffed by passionate believers and hated by conservatives; its critics called its projects make-work, and wags said WPA stood for "We Piddle Around." The contrary was true. We have only to look about us today to discover its lasting presence.

Nick Taylor is the author of seven nonfiction books, including Bass Wars: A Story of Fishing, Fame and Fortune and Sins of the Father. He also collaborated with senator and astronaut John Glenn on his memoir. Nick lives in New York City.

James Boles is an accomplished audiobook narrator whose work includes such titles as Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town by Nate Blakeslee and A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus. He is also an award-winning stage actor. He lives in Stratford, Connecticut.

Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of local bookstores with the promo code SWITCH, you’ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Reviews

"Vivid, engagingly written" ---San Francisco Chronicle Expand reviews
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch