Monday, June 24, 2013

WPA Ditch-Digging

(WPA workers installing a water mainImage courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.) 

WPA workers were often insulted during the Great Depression. They were labeled "shovel-leaners," "lazy good-for-nothings," and "ditch-diggers." As unemployed men & women they were insulted, and when they took jobs in the WPA they were insulted. The insults--like the insults directed at the poor & unemployed today--never stopped. 

 (WPA workers opening the ground for new water linesImage courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)

Of course, the people calling the WPA workers "ditch-diggers" failed to mention the fact that the ditches were filled with new water mains and sewer lines. And they enjoyed the luxury of clean water and modern sewage--that the WPA workers provided to them--while insulting those very same WPA workers.

  (WPA workers lowering a sewer line. Image courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)  

Across America, the WPA installed 16,117 miles of new water lines and 24,271 miles of new storm & sewer drains. The "ditch-diggers" modernized American infrastructure. And that infrastructure allowed businesses to expand and new communities to develop.  

1 comment:

  1. My grandfather lost his farm in the great depression. Per the 1940 Census for Illinois he had been engaged for 39 weeks in public emergency work as a ditch digger reworking sewers in Clarke County, Iowa. While my grandmother was living back in Illinois raising three kids by herself.

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