Editing Works Progress Administration (section)

==Incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps==
{{See also|Internment of Japanese Americans}}
The WPA spent $4.47&nbsp;million on removal and [[internment]] between March and November 1942, slightly more than the $4.43&nbsp;million spent by the Army for that purpose during that period.   Jason Scott Smith observes that "the eagerness of many WPA administrators to place their organization in the forefront of this wartime enterprise is striking." The WPA was on the ground helping with removal and relocation even before the creation of the WRA. On March 11, Rex L. Nicholson, the WPA's regional director, took charge of the "Reception and Induction" centers that controlled the first thirteen assembly centers. Nicholson's old WPA associates played key roles in the administration of the camps.<ref>Beito, p. 182–183.</ref>

WPA veterans involved in internment included Clayton E. Triggs, the first manager of the [[Manzanar Relocation Center]] in California, a facility that, according to one insider, was "manned just about 100% by the WPA." Drawing on experiences derived from New Deal–era road building, he supervised the installation of such features as guard towers and spotlights. Then-Secretary of Commerce [[Harry Hopkins]] praised his successor as WPA administrator, [[Howard O. Hunter]], for the "building of those camps for the War Department for the Japanese evacuees on the West Coast."<ref>Beito, p. 181–183.</ref>