How CWA and FERA Built the Foundation for the WPA Federal Art Project

In the early 1930s, before the Works Progress Administration became a national symbol of federal support for the arts, two emergency relief programs quietly laid the groundwork. The Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) were created to put Americans back to work during the Great Depression, but in the process they did something unprecedented: they treated artists as workers whose skills could serve the public good.

This page traces how CWA and FERA funded the first national art projects, organized the first federal art administrators, and created the hiring and teaching models that later shaped the WPA Federal Art Project.

Civil Works Administration (CWA), 1933–1934

The Civil Works Administration was launched in November 1933 as an emergency program to provide immediate winter employment. Under its umbrella, the federal government funded the first national art initiative: the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), organized in December 1933 within the Treasury Department. PWAP’s purpose was simple and radical for its time: to give work to unemployed artists by having them embellish public buildings and parks with paintings, murals, sculpture, and graphic art.

During its brief life from December 1933 to May 1934, PWAP employed approximately 3,700–3,749 artists and produced around 15,000–15,663 works of art, including easel paintings, murals, sculpture, and prints. These works were installed in schools, libraries, orphanages, government offices, and other public spaces across the country, making contemporary American art visible to communities that had rarely seen it before.

PWAP was supervised by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury L. W. Robert Jr., with financier‑painter Edward Bruce serving as a key organizer and later national director of Treasury art programs. The administrative team and regional structure developed under CWA and PWAP became the prototype for later federal art programs, including the WPA Federal Art Project.

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), 1933–1935

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration, created in May 1933, distributed relief funds to the states to support work programs for the unemployed. While FERA was not a dedicated art agency, its grants allowed states to continue and expand art projects after PWAP ended in 1934. Many unfinished PWAP murals and other works were carried forward under state programs funded by FERA, bridging the gap between the first national art experiment and the later WPA.

Under FERA, artists could qualify for relief and be assigned to teaching, workshop, and community art projects. In several states, FERA funds supported local art classes, exhibitions, and studio work that anticipated the community‑based model later formalized in the WPA Art Centers. These early experiments showed that artists could be integrated into relief programs not only as individual producers, but also as teachers and organizers within their communities.

From Emergency Relief to a National Art Program

By 1935, the lessons of CWA and FERA were clear: artists could be hired on relief rolls, their work could enrich public buildings, and their presence could strengthen local cultural life. When the Works Progress Administration was created in 1935, these precedents shaped the design of Federal Project Number One and the WPA Federal Art Project. Many of the administrators who had worked on PWAP and related efforts under CWA and FERA—among them Edward Bruce and other Treasury art officials—carried their experience into the new programs.

The result was a national system that combined what CWA and FERA had tested in fragments: direct employment for artists, public commissions for buildings and parks, and community‑based teaching and exhibition programs. Without the emergency experiments of 1933–1935, the WPA Federal Art Project would not have had a tested model to follow.

Continue the story:

• The WPA Federal Art Project: Story 1
• The WPA Federal Art Project: Story 2
• WPA Art Centers and Education