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Economy Act of 1932 (Section 213)
Federal legislation signed by President Hoover requiring that, when government staff cuts were made, married persons whose spouses also worked for the federal government be dismissed first. In practice, Section 213 almost exclusively targeted women, as married female federal employees were dismissed before their husbands. Over 1,600 women lost their federal jobs under this provision by 1937. Many states adopted similar rules for their own public sector employees.
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
The largest New Deal agency, established in 1935, which employed millions of unemployed Americans in public works projects and cultural production. Its arts divisions included the Federal Art Project, Federal Writers' Project, Federal Theatre Project, and Federal Music Project, which together employed thousands of artists, writers, actors, and musicians. The WPA produced murals, state guidebooks, plays, and recordings that documented Depression-era America, and was dissolved in 1943.