The Background
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. It responded to needs for relief, reform, and recovery from the Great Depression. The programs focused on what historians refer to as the "3 Rs": relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.

Roosevelt nationalized unemployment relief through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), headed by close friend Harry Hopkins. Roosevelt had insisted that the projects had to be costly in terms of labor, beneficial in the long term, and the WPA was forbidden to compete with private enterprises—therefore, the workers had to be paid smaller wages.[88] The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created to return the unemployed to the workforce.[89] The WPA financed a variety of projects such as hospitals, schools, and roads,[50] and employed more than 8.5 million workers who built 650,000 miles of highways and roads, 125,000 public buildings as well as bridges, reservoirs, irrigation systems, parks, playgrounds and so on. The artwork found in our collection largely comes from buildings throughout the Livingston Campus.