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City & County of Denver, City Park, Girls on Bicycles, nd

Work(s) Progress Administration Photograph Collection at the Colorado State Archives

WPA Home    Links    Bibliography    Index   Photograph Page 1     Photograph Page 2     FERA  La Plata County WPA

    The Work(s) Progress Administration was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 6, 1935, as a reaction to the Great Depression, to provide relief work for unemployed persons through public work projects.  The WPA provided jobs to unemployed workers on public projects sponsored by federal, state, or local agencies; and on defense and war-related projects. Between 1935 and 1943 the WPA provided almost 8 million jobs at a cost of 11 billion dollars, and created a legacy of public welfare that has become monumentalized through their still used buildings, roads, dams, schools, indexes, oral histories, and art.  The Work(s) Progress Administration was abolished by an executive order on December 4, 1942.

    The Colorado State Archives is proud to house a large collection of photographic prints and nitrate negatives documenting the WPA's work in the City & County of Denver.  Some of the more fascinating subjects covered in this collection is the creation of Cherry Creek Dam, a variety of work done to stabilize the Platte River, pedestrian traffic surveys, sewing room projects, repair of several Denver Public Schools, City Hall, Museums, development of City Park Zoo, Fitzsimmons General Hospital, and the new Denver Courthouse.  An index to this collection is available on-line, and a thumbnailed sample of this collection is also available.  If you are interested in accessing this collection please contact the Colorado State Archives.

Colorado WPA Links

http://newdeal.feri.org/library/i39.htm

Photograph of Dust Storm near Springfield, Co.

http://newdeal.feri.org/library/y40.htm

Photograph of State Capitol Boetcher Water Murals being painted

http://newdeal.feri.org/library/i63.htm

Photograph of volunteers steaming cans for vegetable distribution

http://newdeal.feri.org/library/i65.htm

Photograph of Farm labor

http://newdeal.feri.org/library/j22.htm

Photograph of men pouring grain into hoppers at the State Grocery Warehouse

http://newdeal.feri.org/library/j21.htm

Photograph of packaging Food for Distribution at State Grocery Warehouse

http://newdeal.feri.org/ala/al36939.htm

Report - Rural Library Service Projects of the National Youth Administration by Grace W. Estes

http://newdeal.feri.org/works/wpa02.htm

Letter - Hot Lunches for a Million School Children a letter by Ellen S. Woodward; Assistant Administrator; Works Progress Administration

http://www.ancestry.com/magazine/articles/wpa.htm

The WPA as a Geneological Resource

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/wpa.html

The WPA as a part of African-American History

gopher://gopher.nara.gov:70/00/inform/guide/10s/rg069.txt

WPA records at the National Archives

http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/wpa/wpa.html

Photographic exhibit of WPA projects in Georgia

Bibliography - Other Than Colorado State Archives Collections

DeNoon, Christopher. Posters of the WPA.  Los Angeles : Wheatley Press, c1987.

Leuchtenburg, William. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. New York: Harper and Row, Inc., 1963.

Mangione, Jerre. The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writer's Project, 1935-1943. New York: Avon Books, 1972.

O'Connor, Francis V.  Art for the Millions; Essays from the 1930s by Artists and Administrators of the WPA Federal Art Project.  Greenwich, Conn., New York Graphic Society, 1973.

Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York: Pantheon, 1970.

Turner, Ida McAfee, 1897-. Oral History 2 Aug., 1979. Interviewed by Bonnie Hardwick, Aug. 2, 1979.  Recollections of Federal Art Program in Colorado.   Denver Public Library

United States. Federal Works Agency. Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43. Washington, D.C., U. S. Govt. Print. Office, 1947.  Colorado State University Library.

United States. Work Projects Administration. Colorado.  Records, 1935-1943. Scrapbooks, plays, research reports. Chiefly Federal Writers' Project material.  Denver Public Library.

United States. Works Progress Administration. Work Pays America : WPA in Pictures.   Washington: Government Printing Office, nd. Colorado State University Library.

Writers' Program. Work Projects Administration. Colorado. The WPA guide to 1930s Colorado.  Lawrence, Kan. : University Press of Kansas, 1987.

Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Colorado. Northport, N.Y.:  Bacon & Wieck, c 1940.

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Last modified June 18, 2003