Federal Emergency Relief Administration
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Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was the name given by the Roosevelt Administration to a program similar to unemployment-relief efforts of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) set up by Herbert Hoover and the U.S. Congress in 1932. It was established as a result of the Federal Emergency Relief Act (ch. 30, 48 Stat. 55, enacted 1933-05-12).
The Act was the first direct-relief operation under the New Deal, and was headed by Harry L. Hopkins, a New York social worker who was one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's most influential advisers. Hopkins was a believer in relief efforts that emphasized work, and that FERA's main goal was to alleviate adult unemployment. In order to achieve this goal, FERA provided state assistance for the unemployed and their families. From when it began in May 1933 until it closed its operations in December, 1935, it gave states and localities $3.1 billion to operate local work projects and transient programs. FERA provided work for over 20 million people and developed facilities on public lands across the country. Faced with continued high unemployment and concerns for public welfare during the coming winter of 1933-34, FERA instituted the Civil Works Administration (CWA) as a $400 million short-term measure to get people to work. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration was terminated in 1935 and its work taken over by the WPA and the Social Security Board.
[edit] External links
- Living New Deal Project, California
- Essay: The Federal Emergency Relief Administration program description
- University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Federal Emergency Relief Administration Photographs Essay on the program and images documenting the Federal Emergency Relief Administration program in King County, Washington, 1933-35.
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