Feb. 19, 2009 In a cedar chest at my home is a woolen thermal
shirt. This is not just any thermal shirt; it is a part of
history and a reminder. The shirt was a government issue, given
to my grandfather. As a young man during the Great Depression,
he worked with the Civilian Conservation Corps planting trees,
building parks, and working on other public conservation
projects. My grandfather earned a dollar a day. The debate still
continues among economists as to whether or not those vast
public works projects that President Roosevelt launched through
the CCC and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) along with
other government spending helped end the nation’s worst economic
crisis. Regardless, FDR’s New Deal and the opportunities that it
offered were significant to the many struggling families who
were unemployed during a time when unemployment stood at almost
25%. Between 1935-1943 over 8 million Americans were on the
payroll of the WPA alone. FDR’s actions were controversial as he
took the counterintuitive