In 1929, the American economy collapsed. The Great Depression caused enormous hardships for tens of millions of people and transformed national politics by vastly expanding government in an attempt to stabilize the economy and prevent suffering. The inception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs marked the U.S. government’s first large and direct investment in cultural development.
               The largest and most important of the New Deal cultural programs was the Works Progress Administration, a huge employment relief program established in 1935. The WPA philosophy was to put the unemployed back to work in jobs which would serve the public good and preserve the skills and self-esteem of workers throughout the U.S. In 1939, the WPA changed its name from Work “Progress” to Works “Projects.”
               The WPA’s Federal Project Number One, known as “Federal One,” had five major divisions: the Federal Art Project, under which the murals created for the John Bassett Middle School were created, the Federal Music Project, the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Writers Project, and the Historical Records Survey. Just one year after the implementation of the programs, 40,000 WPA artists and other cultural workers were employed in projects across the U.S. In their commitments to developing work which would serve public goals, each component division of Federal One became an innovative producer of cultural programs.
               Roosevelt proclaimed that the primary purpose of the Federal Arts Project was “to conserve the talents and skills of thousands of artists who, given the opportunity, are capable of making contributions of the utmost value to the enrichment of American life. This led the way to the development of a new movement in art, “Regionalism.”