re: #179 Justanotherhuman

No, just talking about NC. Even today, you can find signs of the WPA in roads, bridges, etc, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, esp. Some blocks along the stone walls lining the road are engraved with “WPA” and the year the wall was built.

Ironically, it was the AAA farm programs that elevated tobacco to new heights, consolidating many farms and driving sharecroppers, esp Blacks, out of the market. And whites jumped at the WPA jobs which paid a bit more than local wages, many times blocking Blacks from obtaining them.

And a lot of WPA work still extant at various National Parks, especially in the West. Plus highway work in the Columbia Valley in Oregon as well.

It was a pretty obvious strategy to deal with the Great Depression - public works in order to increase employment and keep people busy, fed, and putting money into the economy. Standard Keynesian response to a depression as well - increase government spending as the bridge until the overall economy starts to recover. And the same strategy was carried out in countries other than the U.S. (Italy for example.)