Remembering the WPA during Women's History Month: Furniture repair

Above: The description for this photograph, taken in North Carolina, ca. 1935-1943, reads, "WPA furniture repair project... this project employs 66 persons who repair broken furniture donated by more fortunate families for distribution to other families on relief." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: A WPA furniture repair class in Lima, Ohio, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: Another scene from the WPA furniture repair class in Lima, Ohio, showing women reupholstering an old chair. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph, taken in Gulfport, Mississippi, 1938, reads, "Old furniture is renovated here by WPA workers, to be distributed by Surplus Commodities." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Many women were trained by the WPA to repair furniture and also to make furniture from scratch. The women then utilized these skills to improve their own homes or the homes of low-income Americans. A 1939 Ohio newspaper article described an interesting WPA housekeeping aide project that included furniture construction, repair, and distribution, as well as creative use of scrap material: 

"The trained [WPA] aides, who go into homes where assistance is needed in an emergency such as sickness, not only take new ideas in housekeeping to the women of the homes, but they raise the family morale and do much towards rehabilitation... Women assigned to the project spend one day a week at the [training] center, keeping house and cooking in the practice home, which consists of a kitchen and dinette, living room, bedroom and small bath... One of the tasks is for the women to renovate all sacks in which [surplus] commodities are sent to Marion [Ohio] by the state. All lettering is dissolved and those sacks not used for upholstering and in making hassocks--the latter constructed of prune boxes covered with renovated sacks and upholstered in dyed burlap--are turned over to the sewing center."

"Dish cloths are crocheted from the sack strings, dresser scarfs and luncheon sets are made from sacks of finer materials and rugs are made from natural and dyed burlap. When the dilapidated furniture came to the aides, they took the clean burlap sacking, bought 50 cents worth of dyes, created their own upholstering material and, with sack padding, turned out creditably upholstered and certainly attractive and colorful furniture. 'That's what they'll do with any old pieces of upholstered furniture that comes their way,' [explained supervisor Marie Fulton], 'The finished pieces will be distributed among the many Marion homes where furnishings are deplorably inadequate'" ("Burlap Sacks, Orange Crates, Become Furniture in WPA Women's Project," The Marion Star, February 10, 1939).

Can we even imagine something like this happening today? Unemployed women offered jobs to help families in need? Formerly jobless women employed to visit the poor and the ill, boost their morale, and provide housekeeping and furniture for them?? Under our current socio-economic & sociopathic order--where we routinely humiliate and scold the poor, and routinely capitulate to millionaires & billionaires, allowing them to cripple the government (i.e., We the People), enforce poverty, and supervise every aspect of our lives--the mere mention of such an innovative, kind, and productive program would be nothing short of blasphemy.