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Union College

Honors Theses

Great Depression

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The Federal Art Project: Intentions, Goals, And Legacy, Meghan Bentley Jun 2018

The Federal Art Project: Intentions, Goals, And Legacy, Meghan Bentley

Honors Theses

Created under the umbrella program called the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression, the Federal Art Project (FAP) was a unique program that attempted to put struggling artists back to work and aimed to preserve artistic skill in American society. This thesis examines the efficacy and legacy of the Federal Art Project by examining the legitimacy of the criticisms levied against the FAP, the effect the FAP was able to have on the American public and arts community, and closes by examining the findings of these claims within the context of a collection of local FAP paintings. While …


Working Hard Or Hardly Working?: An Examination Of Work Relief In Upstate New York 1931-1943, Maxwell Prime Jun 2014

Working Hard Or Hardly Working?: An Examination Of Work Relief In Upstate New York 1931-1943, Maxwell Prime

Honors Theses

Becoming the first U.S. state to provide direct funding and administrative support for work relief to its cities, counties and townships; with the creation of the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration in November of 1931, New York took its first steps in what would become a long tradition of work relief in the state. However, existing academic examinations of work relief in upstate New York in large part ignore activities in the state’s upstate region in favor of higher profile operations in New York City. This thesis attempts to chart the rise and developmental trajectory of work relief in upstate New …


Schenectadys New Deal: The Wpa In The City Of Schenectady, Scott F. Power Jun 2011

Schenectadys New Deal: The Wpa In The City Of Schenectady, Scott F. Power

Honors Theses

When President Roosevelt assumed office in March of 1933, he faced an unemployment rate of twenty-five percent, homelessness, and the malaise of a nation stuck in a deepening state of poverty. His solution, aimed at alleviating the circumstances resulting from the Great Depression, was to institute a series of economic programs known as the “New Deal.” Roosevelt proposed the creation of a variety of social welfare programs, including “work relief” that would provide government jobs for the unemployed. The best known program was the Works Progress Administration, or simply, the WPA, created in 1935. Through projects ranging from building roads …