Just today the House Appropriations Committee released its summary of the $825 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009. Mentioned is its intention to “put people to work building 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries to help our kids compete with any worker in the world.”

Spurring economic recovery and long-term competitiveness through libraries is not a new concept. During the Great Depression, FDR’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped libraries in countless ways. New libraries were constructed in 48 states – Rochester’s Rundel Memorial Library (below) is just one example. The program also employed some 38,000 library support staff, which more than doubled the number of library workers at the time.



Just as notable was the expansion of public library service to previously unreached areas. Some 5,800 bookmobiles were put to use bringing books to those that could bring themselves to libraries. Even more iconic were the packhorse librarians, who delivered books to remote, roadless, and largely illiterate areas of Appalachia and the Ohio Valley. Prior to the Great Depression, over a third of America had no reasonable access to library service. The WPA helped narrow that gap. All in all, some $100,000,000 had been dispensed to libraries.

The WPA’s effects can still be felt today. In addition to WPA libraries that still stand, the WPA helped enrich and beautify libraries with murals, artwork and books by Federal Writers Program authors like Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Saul Bellow. The WPA’s Historical Records Survey undertook massive indexing and cataloging projects that serve libraries, archives and their researchers to this day. Most importantly, books and literacy services were spread to regions of the country that needed them most.

The WPA helped expand the reach and role of the American public library during a time when it might have otherwise been snuffed out. Its legacy benefits Americans to this day. Let’s hope that President-Elect Obama and Congress have the wisdom to make libraries an important part of both our short-term economic recovery and long-term economic viability.