Violins & shovels: the WPA arts projects

Abstract

In april 1935, the American Congress established the WPA-project: Works Progress Adminstration. If you could not find a job during the Depression in the 30's, you could try the WPA, what was better than the dole. The WPA's hope was to put people to work doing what they were trained to do. This was also the case for artists, which was a revolutionary idea: making plays, books, music and pictures was not considered als 'work'. The New Deal of Roosevelt had been willing to help artists even before the WPA. Within a year, over 5.000 artists were busy on the WPA. Standards varied widely: about the quality of the artists' work, the way of judging it, what were the criteria and who decided that? The state intervention of the WPA radically altered the relationship of art and artist ot the audience and to society. The artists were taken seriously as real professionals.