Roosevelt’s WPA legacy lives on in Archer Gymnasium

ARCHER ‒ The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a program created by Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1935 to address unemployment during the great depression. It provided public works projects and jobs for millions of Americans encouraging infrastructure construction, arts and culture initiatives and other work relief programs.

The Archer High School gymnasium was built in 1936-37 under the WPA to support the school, which was built in 1917. Buildings like this exist throughout the state of Florida and the United States.

When FDR took office in 1933, he promised a “New Deal” for everyone which included women, African Americans and others. While inequities existed under the programs, many women, African Americans and other marginalized groups found employment with the WPA.

In 1935 the WPA employed 350,000 black Americans, about 15 percent of its total work-force. The WPA put women to work in clerical jobs, gardening, canning and as librarians and seamstresses. The women engaged in sewing projects made up seven percent of the National WPA workforce.

There was some criticism of the WPA, which included WPA Construction projects, WPA Arts program and more.

WPA Legacy

Despite these attacks, the WPA is celebrated today for the employment it offered to millions of Americans during the darkest days of the great depression, and for its lasting legacy of smartly designed well-built schools, dams, roads, bridges and other buildings and structures — many of which are still in active use across the United States. The WPA shut down in June 1943. By that time unemployment was less than two percent as many Americans transitioned to work in the armed services and defense industries.

When I learned that the old gymnasium was an FDR Works Program Administration project. it inspired me to make the Archer Community Center a Florida Historical Heritage Site. This building should always be a part of FDR’s great American history.

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