Editing Public Works Administration (section)

{{Short description|Part of the New Deal of 1933 in the U.S.}}
{{distinguish|Works Progress Administration}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Use American English|date=May 2022}}
[[File:1939PineCityVillageHall.JPG|thumb|right|350px|Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works project plaque in the [[Pine City, Minnesota]], City Hall]]
[[File: Public Works Administration Project, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power and Navigation Dam in Oregon... - NARA - 195807.tif|thumb|350px|Public Works Administration Project and [[U.S. Army Corps of Engineers]] constructing [[Bonneville Dam]] in Oregon]]

The '''Public Works Administration''' ('''PWA'''), part of the [[New Deal]] of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by [[United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior]] [[Harold L. Ickes]]. It was created by the [[National Industrial Recovery Act]] in June 1933 in response to the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]]. It built large-scale [[public works]] such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Its goals were to spend $3.3 billion in the first year, and $6 billion in all, to supply employment, stabilize [[buying power]], and help revive the economy. Most of the spending came in two waves, one in 1933–1935 and another in 1938. Originally called the ''Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works'', it was renamed the Public Works Administration in 1935 and shut down in 1944.<ref>{{cite web|website=National Archives|title=Records of the Public Works Administration|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/135.html|date=15 August 2016}}</ref>

The PWA spent over $7 billion on contracts with private construction firms that did the actual work. It created an infrastructure that generated national and local pride in the 1930s and is still vital nine decades later. The PWA was much less controversial than its rival agency, the [[Works Progress Administration]] (WPA), headed by [[Harry Hopkins]], which focused on smaller projects and hired unemployed unskilled workers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Jason Scott |title=Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933–1956 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2006 |isbn=9780521139939 |language=en}}</ref>