What was the WPA?

The Works Progress Administration. A great program, because, for example, the federal government funded art projects, i.e. commissioned artists--in a very difficult economy--while beautifying cities across the nation at the same time. Yay for Public Art!

Here's yet another WPA "results" answer: all the many "life histories" collected by the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers Project ... one of the WPA projects.

Here's a great description taken directly from the US Library of Congress site: << ... collection includes 2,900 documents representing the work of over 300 writers from 24 states. Typically 2,000-15,000 words in length, the documents consist of drafts and revisions, varying in form from narrative to dialogue to report to case history. The histories describe the informant's family education, income, occupation, political views, religion and mores, medical needs, diet and miscellaneous observations. Pseudonyms are often substituted for individuals and places named in the narrative texts. >>

WONDERFUL material to go through to get a sense of what "real people" were experiencing and thinking in the late 1930s in the US.

"American Life Histories"
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpaintro/wpahome.html

Works Progress Administration

Works Progress Administration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

During the depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) gave jobs to Americans all over the country.

http://live.psu.edu/video/390

Others have already answered about what the WPA was, so I'll add a couple of links to "results" of the WPA that might be interesting followup ...

For info and lots of great links re: the Federal Art Project .. one of the many projects of the WPA .. you can visit here:
http://www.wpamurals.com/

For text transcripts of "slave narratives" .. a subset of interviews done by the WPA .. throughout several US states, go to the "W" listings at Project Gutenberg then scroll down to "Work Projects Administration":
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/w#a3906

Much more out there, but these are a couple just to get a flavor of what was seen, captured, preserved ..

For all you even need to know about the Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 the Work Projects Administration; WPA) that ended the Great Depression see this excellent wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration