Put to Work : The WPA and Public Employment in the Great Depression

A social worker in North Carolina during the 1970s, Rose (economics, California State U.-San Bernardino) started investigating how the welfare system might be improved. She discovered that the original the Social Security Act would have provided a job for people whose benefits had run out, but this provision was stripped before the Act was implemented. The function was delegated to the Works Project Administration, which operated only from 1933 to 1935. Why was public employment so scary then, she wondered, and why does it remain so now. The first edition of her findings appeared in 1994, but the situation today casts them in a very different light. She updates the preface, introduction, and conclusion. Annotation 2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)